misquoting Clive Staples, grief and anger

 

 

I ran across the meme lately with the quote about anger and grief attributed to C.S. Lewis.

Is it much exaggeration to say that most quotes attributed to Lewis on the internet are not really Lewis?

I have anger and grief about how often this happens!

I loved the quote, but immediately guessed (correctly ) that it was not him. 

 That is so annoying. There are even whole  websites...even an entire book!... to debunk fake Lewis quotes.

• Quotes NOT By Lewis
• Quotes Misattributed to C.S. Lewis
•  Book: The Misquotable C.S. Lewis: What He Didn’t Say, What He Actually Said, and Why It Matters 

Here are the most frequent  misquoted or fake Lewis quotes that Lewis  Foundation is asked about. Maybe if I post them here, it will help stop the madness....yeah, right! (:

Quotes NOT by C.S. Lewis

1. “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” – paraphrase of a George McDonald quote in Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood
2. “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” – Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life OR This Was Your LIfe! Preparing to Meet God Face to Face by Rich Howard and Jamie Lash
3. “You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.” – Les Brown
4. “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – Dr. John Trainer
5. “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” – paraphrase of a Charles Marshall quote in Shattering the Glass Slipper
6. “We read to know/discover that we are not alone.” William Nicholson, screenwriter, in Shadowlands (1993)
7. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” – from the film Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010); the screenwriters are Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Michael Petroni
8. “Experience, that most brutal of teachers, but you learn, my God do you learn.” – slight misquote from a quote in the film Shadowlands (1993), William Nicholson, screenwriter  -      -LINK

Anyway on to the 'misundertaken" quote at hand.

I like it, and would credit it correctly if I could.

It reminds me of this :

"My own experience with recovering addicts is that two tasks seem to help them the most:

mourning losses, and getting aggressions out front."

-Dr. Jerome Levin-Dr. Jerome Levin

 I was glad to find this from Christopher Brady;

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” This quote, with the accompanying picture, came up in my FB feed and was attributed, as you can see, to C.S. Lewis and, more specifically, to A Grief Observed. Except Lewis did not write this. I reshared on FB both acknowledging the truth of the quote and questioning the attribution.

First, the sentiment. It is powerful and it rings true to the experience of so many of us in grief. When a loved one has died, it can be fairly obvious. Our emotions and feelings well up and anger is chief among them, especially when it is someone who has died well before their time. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross even famously placed it #2 on her list of five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying. (It is worth noting that most now acknowledge that we will go through these stages, and other feelings, in any order, often circling back again. A key to emotional health is to try not to get stuck in any one moment and not beat ourselves up when we come back to a “prior” stage. Feel the feels.) Anger and grief do, indeed, go hand in hand. Recognizing that can be a very important part of coping with anger, since sometimes we might struggle to pinpoint its origin.

Grief comes from many directions, however, and I define grief as those emotions that come from the loss of something we hoped or expected to continue in our life. It is not just about someone dying. For example, our institution is going through a change of governing structure, moving towards a model that many (perhaps even most) other universities have. It is not a small matter and it has caused a lot of upheaval and dissent within the community. People describe their anger, frustration, and anxiety in various ways, but they all are a part of grief. There are, of course, layers and complications to all feelings and many will point to this or that specific thing that has angered them, but grief is a key and unspoken component of this experience. What they had expected as a certainty, the structure and way of doing things, was now changing and they weren’t ready for it. Many don’t like it. It is disorienting and unsettling. 

Anger is real. It is a part of grief. That needs to be said and acknowledged so that we can process our feelings and emotions accordingly. It is a good quote, “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”

It just isn’t from C.S. Lewis. A mutual friend connected me with William O’Flaherty who runs Essential C.S. Lewis, a great site for all things CSL. He also published The Misquotable C.S. Lewis, a look at various and sundry quotes and near-quotes attributed to Lewis. He confirmed what I and others on my FB discussion had surmised, Lewis didn’t write this.1 At least not that we can find. That is a shame, not because it should be from Lewis, but that the original author is not getting the credit they deserve. Conceptually, it is a worthy sentiment and I would want to credit them, so if you are the original author, please do come forward!

Proving a negative is difficult, so how do we know that Lewis didn’t write this? Well, William and I both happen to have almost all of Lewis’ works electronically and we both, independently searched for this phrase and could not find it in his corpus. It is always possible we missed something. An interesting note from my research is that in A Grief Observed, the book that this quote was attributed to in one post, opens, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.” That actually describes very well the feelings I have had in grief. Yet a search for the word “anger” in the book, brings up “danger” and “stranger” but never “anger.” So Lewis equates the emotion with fear but not anger, at least in that work.

Others suggested reasons why this is not from Lewis include that it simply didn’t “sound like Lewis.” Not an unreasonable argument. We all have a sense of how an author “sounds” (or reads). We are talking about style. Would Lewis personify anger and grief? Would he assign a gender to grief? (And I have found myself wondering what it means that the author did assign the female gender to grief.) It is possible that this was attributed to Lewis in some sort of dramatization, such as Shadowlands or The Most Reluctant Convert. I have not checked those sources. I also noted Michael Ward’s very good chapter “On Suffering” and cannot find it mentioned there either. I would think, if it existed as a Lewis quote, Ward would have cited it.2  -Christopher Brady, Link

--

The quote sometimes shows up as part of a  longer section; see this commentary by Lauenarve:

Yes, we are here, once again, revisiting the topic of the ability words have to allow us to feel and experience things we didn’t know were possible.

I’m an English major, and I’m a sucker for beautiful writing. Forgive me.

As I’ve stated in the past, if I read something that resonates with me deeply, I’m going to remember it; additionally, I’m more than likely going to save whatever piece of writing it is that has snagged my attention to avoid losing it.

I viewed an Instagram reel a few days ago that I’ve been thinking about, on and off, ever since. I don’t follow the account that posted the reel, although perhaps I should, but I am delighted it decided to appear in my algorithm because of how powerful the language used in it is. The caption states that the reel is a compilation of quotes from C.S. Lewis, Laura Eden and Nagata Kabi.

“I sat with anger long enough until it told me its real name was Grief.

“I’m not a whole person and I don’t think I will ever be. Parts of me died in the house I grew up in and I visit them in dreams.

“When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.

“Loving you became just a different way to hate myself.

“I guess it’s okay to grieve about the child you could have been. How can something be there and not be there?

“How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become?

“Up until then I never understood how people could just keep on living. But maybe I have a place to belong, but it wasn’t something definite, like a seat. It was flowing and formless. Perhaps inside of me. Perhaps outside of me. A reason to live. The power to live. A place to belong in this world. I think the essence of that sweet nectar varies from person to person.”

Love of language or not, if this piece of writing doesn’t make you feel something, I don’t know what will.  Link

God-haunted music: Model Engine/ The World is a Beautiful Place, and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die

 I don't know how I ever missed these two bands:

1)Model Engine

See this from Rhett Smith:

“In 1995 I was standing in the cleared out sanctuary of a church waiting for the headlining Christian band to come up and play. Christian music, at least in the small band, alternative format, was in its prime, and there didn’t seem to be one weekend that went by where there weren’t Christian alternative bands playing in my hometown of Phoenix, AZ. But this night was different. Everyone came out to see the opening band, a local favorite, and between their set and the headlining act, almost everyone went home. Hundreds of kids left, and there were only a handful of us in the room. And I mean, probably 50-60 people.

We were waiting for this band that we had never heard of before, and we figured, well, we might as well stay around. Three guys walk up to the stage, and as they began to play, we knew that we had never heard anything like them before…from the music…and especially to iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 786px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=775579458/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" seamless>The Lean Years Tradition by Model Engine

the lyrics. It was a transformative show. And who was this band?” Black Eyed Sceva, who went on to become Model Engine" . link

-

t wasn’t so much a departure in sound but rather an upgrade in sound production, songwriting, and that full band sound complete with different instrumentation and backing features. With the sound of this record there was absolutely no reason this couldn’t have been the biggest release of the late 90’s. I’ve praised this album a lot over the years and I count myself as a big fan of the band. Switchfoot were just starting to take off around this time and I could have seen the two bands touring together in the years that followed but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Although I do remember seeing both bands at some mini-fest in the abandoned department store of an old mall near us that was getting remodeled. I don’t know the whole story regarding the end of the band and one day I will interview Jeremy Post about it but it was always a sad part of our scene to lose a group of guys that were intensely talented and passionate about what they did. They were in terms of lyrics, lightyears ahead of many other bands at that time (except for their label mates FIF who always seemed to pull out an endless supply of witty and thought-provoking words). So, long story short, the fantastic 1997 album by Model Engine is now finally available on all digital networks for the first time. Head over to Spotify and Apple Music right now and check out Model Engine “The Lean Years Tradition”. The band members themselves are responsible for the re-release and all support goes to them. The album has been remixed/Remastered as well. Enjoy! link

--

    Interview with frontman:

Linda - You never liked religion much.

Jeremy - (laughs) No, but I think traveling has been the best thing for me. It's nice to see how other Christians serve the Lord. God uses people in so many different areas and walks of life. If I just sit out in my house in California and that's all I see, I get a pretty limited view. So it's nice to go across the states, or go to Europe and see how Christians adapt to their environment, finding the different ways people serve. 

Linda - Your new material has more graphic language. "Reeberbahn," for example, is about your encounter with a prostitute before going on stage in Hamburg, Germany. Why do you choose such harsh subject matter?

Jeremy - That's not something we've tried to do. I've been writing songs for a long time, and a lot of people considered the songs that ended up on our albums abrasive because of the things they talked about. What I thought was pretty nice and mellow, people thought was on the edge of being too graphic. As I've matured, I've come to think that life is graphic and abrasive a lot of times. If you're going to be writing songs about that, you have to bring those elements in or you're not being honest. That's why I appreciate Vigilantes of Love so much because Bill Mallonee writes so poetically about real struggles. 

We definitely are in the Christian market. We end up playing with bands, though, whose thing is writing songs that are more at home in a church--talking about Jesus, praising the Lord with terms that are easy for the Christian community to swallow--whereas I would hope that our music praises God in a way that is real. I see life, I see the down side of it, and I go, "Wow! God's doing a work here?" If I can convey the way that I see God glorified, I think that will glorify God all the more, but it's not going  to be cheerleading other people to praise the Lord. Our job, our calling is to say, "This is my life. This is my experience, and here's how God worked through this experience to change me." Hopefully, that will be reflected in our music. Link

Lyrics to "Reeperbahn":

on a curb with hamburg's dust under my shoe

 things for sale as black as hell in pyrite's golden hue

 there's a ten-foot high window display for something bittersweet

 a book shop sets my backdrop on a busy port town street 

there's a cigarette stuck in the mouth of an overpainted..

on a curb in hamburg watching the junkies 

zigzag breathing something mysterious

 into an otherwise empty bag outside the shops that never close

 on a moonless, starless night across from where the harlots pose

 beneath a block-wide neon light 

there's a cigarette stuck in the mouth of an overpainted whore

 and she comes so close i can smell the smoke and she makes a quote for the price of her wares

See:

The Lean Years Tradition | Model Engine - Bandcamp

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2)The World is a Beautiful Place, and I Am No Longer  Afraid To Die

Start with the closing song/suite on "Illusory Walls": "Fewer Afraid". 

Excerpt from Spotify:

Sometimes, the best place to begin is at the end. If you really want to dig deep into Illusory Walls, the fourth album by The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, it definitely helps to do that. That’s because epic closer “Fewer Afraid”—all 19 minutes, 44 seconds of it—doesn’t just revisit the themes and ideas on the ten songs that precede it, but also offers a self-aware summary of the Connecticut band’s entire history. It’s the conclusion of all the stories within the record as well as a nod to all the lives that helped make them—little glimpses of everything that’s come before, on both a micro, immediate level, and a more universal one.

“That song is a higher level look at my whole life and the whole world,” explains vocalist/guitarist David F. Bello, “as well as the album, our band, and our discography. It places the band in the context of the rest of the world as if we’re listening to everything that came before. It touches on all the themes of the previous songs, but there are also callbacks to songs from earlier in our career. But in this song, they’re the object, not the subject—I’m talking about a world in which these things happen, not talking about these things happening.” -Spotify

This post-rock direction carries forth what is nearly another LP in it of itself—two towering tracks that together total nearly 40 minutes, “Infinite Josh” and “Fewer Afraid”. Both tracks pay compliment to the band’s increasing and expanded fidelity and instrumentation, with compositions that go between serene, delicate and gentle, to spaced out and utterly triumphant, a sense of light amid the dark. At their weakest, these longer explorations can proceed with a certain languor before reaching their zenith. But at that apotheosis is the purpose, and the intent of it to begin with. Between the more traditional songwriting and the exploratory spaces, there’s a consciousness of the material and immaterial, concrete while remaining keenly experimental. It feels like it’s going to break, like it’s going to push into the ether, and that catharsis is resolute throughout the album. 

Illusory Walls is an exploration of darkness, adding definition to the creeping and stalking fears that rattle our ribs and cause us to lose sleep. The anxieties of hearts well worn, sometimes from each other, sometimes from the crushing weight of what feels like a dying planet. In it though, there is a solidarity, a hope, a sense of community that we’re all going through together, as we approach new fears, we put aside old ones to see what’s left. Illusory Walls is a stunning effort of lyrical revelation and sonic rawness in equal measure. While it may chronicle an age of despair in meticulous fashion, it speaks volumes about the potential of who we are, and what we can be. link

Album Review: The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – ‘Illusory Walls’

Pitchfork:

Illusory Walls

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die

giving away $10,000

 Shane Claiborne , in Practicing Jubilee, pp.36-38 in Schools for Conversion, edited by The Rutba House :

“A couple of years ago we had two things happen. First, we won a lawsuit for police misconduct in New York City. The police had been arresting homeless people for sleeping in public, and charging them with disorderly conduct. I was arrested one night as I slept out in protest. Through a long legal process, I was found not guilty and filed a civil suit of wrongful arrest, wrongful prosecution, and police misconduct. And we won, in addition to a legal precedent, around $10,000. We knew it did not belong to me or to The Simple Way, but to the homeless in New York for all they endure. It was their victory. The second thing that happened was that after our study of biblical economics, we had an anonymous gift of $10,000 which had been invested in the Stock Market and now was being returned to the poor. A bunch of us started conspiring, and before long we said: It is time for a celebration of God's Jubilee.’ And where else should we have it but on Wall Street, in the face of the world's economy? This was not a one-time celebration, but an ancient celebration going back to Leviticus 25 and an eternal celebration of the New Jerusalem. We decided to send 100 dollars to 100 different communities that incarnate the spirit of Jubilee and the economics of love. Each $100 bill had ‘love’ written on it. And we invited everyone to Wall Street for the Jubilee.

After months of laughter and dreaming, it really happened.

About 40 people had all the change they could carry over 30,000 coins in bags, coffee mugs, briefcases, backpacks. Another 50 people would be meeting us on Wall Street. A dozen ‘secret stashers’ ran ahead, hiding hundreds of two-dollar bills all over lower Manhattan in parks, napkin holders, and phone booths. At 8:15 we started trickling into the public square in front of the main entrance to the New York Stock Exchange. Word of the redistribution had spread throughout New York, and nearly 100 folks from the alleys and projects were gathered. We had choreographed the celebration like a play production, making Wall Street the stage of our theatrics of counter-terror. At 8:20, Sister Margaret and I stepped forward to proclaim the Jubilee:

—

‘Some of us have worked on Wall Street and some of us have slept on Wall Street. We are a community of struggle.

Some of us are rich people trying to escape our loneliness.

Some of us are poor folks trying to escape the cold. Some of us are addicted to drugs and others are addicted to money.

We are a broken people who need each other and God, for we have come to recognize the mess that we have created of our world and how deeply we suffer from that mess.

Now we are working together to give birth to a new society within the shell of the old. Another world is possible. Another world is necessary. Another world is already here The money for this Jubilee Celebration was formerly invested in the Stock Market. Over $10,000 has been set free, poured out to be shared with our sisters and brothers in need. This money belongs to the poor, the workers, the refugees, the homeless... to all those who have suffered most from the wreckage of the current system. May we return it with joy, with our heads bowed in repentance, and with our hearts lifted in Jubilee.’

——

Then Sister Margaret blew the ram's horn (like our Jewish ancestors used to), and we announced: ‘Let the celebration begin!’ Ten people stationed on balconies above the crowd threw hundreds of dollars in paper money, covering the sky. Then they dropped banners which read,

‘STOP TERRORISM... SHARE.’

‘love,’ and ‘THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE'S NEED BUT NOT ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE'S GREED.’

The streets turned silver. Our ‘pedestrians,’ ‘tourists,’ ‘homeless’ and ‘business people ’began pouring out their change. We decorated the place with sidewalk chalk and filled the air with bubbles. Joy was contagious. Someone bought bagels and started giving them out. People started sharing their winter clothes. One of the street-sweepers winked at us as he flashed a dustpan full of money. Another guy hugged someone and said, ‘Now I can get my prescription filled.’

It worked. We had no idea what would happen. We knew it was dangerous, intentionally bringing God and Mammon face to face. But this is precisely what we have committed our lives to. It is risky, and yet we are people of faith, believing that giving is more contagious than hoarding, that love can convert hatred, light can overcome darkness, and grass can pierce concrete.,,even on Wall Street."

many mansions in heaven?

 

Craig Keener:

Peter wants to follow Jesus wherever He goes, but Jesus tells him that if he wants to follow Jesus where He is going, he must follow Him to the death (John 13:31-38).  Nevertheless, Peter and the other disciples should not be afraid; they should trust in Jesus the same way they trusted in the Father (14:1).  He would prepare a dwelling-place for them in His Father’s house, and would come back afterwards to receive them to Himself (14:2-3).  “You know where I’m going and how I will get there,” He told them (14:4).  Perhaps like us, the disciples were confused, and Thomas spoke for all of them: “Lord, we don’t even know where You’re going; how can we know the way you’re getting there?” (14:5)  So Jesus clarifies His point: Where He is going to the Father (14:6), and He is going there by dying on the Cross but would return afterward to give them the Spirit (14:18-19; 16:18-22).  How would they get to the Father?  By coming through Jesus, who is the way (14:6).

We often cite John 14:2-3 as a proof-text for Jesus’ future coming; conversely, we cite John 14:6 as a proof-text for salvation.  But if we follow the flow of conversation, we have to be wrong about one of them.  14:2-3 declares that Jesus will bring them where He is going, but 14:6 tells us where He’s going and how we His followers will get there: He is going to the Father, and we come to the Father when we get saved through Jesus (14:6).  Do we come to the Father through Jesus only when He returns in the future, or have we come to Him already through faith?  The entire context makes this point clear.  We enter the Father’s house when we become followers of Jesus Christ!

In the context of John’s entire Gospel, there is no reason to assume that the “Father’s house” refers to heaven, though it might be an allusion to the Temple (John 2:16) or to the Father’s household (John 8:35; and we are His new temple and His household).  More helpfully, Jesus goes on to explain the “dwelling-places” (NIV: “rooms”) explicitly in the following context.  The Greek word for “dwelling-place” used in 14:2 occurs in only one other verse in the New Testament—in this very context, in 14:23, part of Jesus’ continuing explanation of 14:2-4.  “The one who loves Me will obey Me, and My Father will love that one and we will come make our ‘dwelling-place’ with that person” (14:23).  The related verb appears throughout John 15:1-10: “Dwell [abide]” in Christ, and let Christ “dwell” in you.  We all know that Jesus will return someday in the future, but if we read the rest of John we learn that Jesus also returned to them from the Father after His resurrection, when He gave the disciples the Spirit, peace and joy (20:19-23), just as He had promised (14:16-17, 26-27; 16:20-22).  This is in fact the only coming the context addresses (14:18 in the context of 14:15-27; 16:12-24).

What is the real point of John 14:2-3?  It is not that Jesus will return and we will be with Him someday—true as that teaching is from other texts.  It is that Jesus returned after His resurrection so Christians could have life with Him (14:18-19), that He has already brought us into His presence and that we can experience the reality of His presence this very moment and at all times.  This means that the same Jesus who washed his disciples feet in the preceding chapter, who taught and healed and suffered for us, is with us at this very moment.  He invites us to trust His presence with us. -link

"hear the good news: everyone dies"

 

Henri Nouwen in the restaurant

Henri Nouwen had an unfinished manuscript at the time of his death in 1996 about what he had learned (the intimacy and spirituality of interconnected teamwork etc) through watching and befriending a traveling trapeze troupe . The book just came out this year with the help of a friend .  The book is very different than his 40 books on the spiritual life .

Here is the section I had in mind. Prepare yourself!

And it is absolutely nowhere online .. until now 😎

I’ll post it without comment .. and duck !  I’ll chime in after some of you do .

“As Henri became more at home in his body , he raised with several editors the possibility of writing a book that would directly explore the questions of sexuality . By the next summer, he mused to a journalist , ‘Every human lives a sexual life , whether you’re celibate [as Nouwen was as a priest/pastor] or whatever . Sexual life is life . That sexual life has to be lived as a life that deepens the communion with God and with our fellow human beings . And if it doesn’t , it can become very harmful . I haven’t found the language for   It yet and hope I will someday .’

Gradually , Henri began to feel a little  more free, even playful. Early in 1996, he amused some of his New York editors over an elegant lunch at the Barbetta restaurant by blurting out happily , ‘Don’t think that I don’t want to have sex with everyone in this restaurant! I have fantasies just like everyone else !’  His editors stared in astonishment, looked speculatively around the restaurant, and then they all burst out laughing together with Henri.”

-p.203,”Flying, Falling, Catching: an unlikely story of finding freedom “ by Henri Nouwen and Carolyn Whitney-Brown .

https://www.amazon.com/dp/006311352X/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc

the covenant post-Holocaust: "Only a wounded faith is worthy of a silent God"

 

"Children were sometimes burned alive at Auschwitz ..After describing this scene, Rabbi  Greenburg put forward the following proposition: 'No statement,  theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children.". -Gushee. p. 70, After Evangelicalism

Highly recommended:  read page 76 (and ideally the whole section of pp. 74-81)  of Gushee's  After Evangelicalism (read here) ,where he covers Greenburg's suggestion that  post-Holocaust, for the Jews,  the covenant is no longer in a "commanded stage," but is now voluntary.

"Israel's relation with God has been severely wounded.  Wiesel: ' Only a wounded faith can exist after these events.  Only a wounded faith is worthy of a silent God.'...God no longer has the right to demand covenant loyalty from his people."  -Gushee. p. 76, After Evangelicalism