Ep 1269 | The Robertsons Turn a Middle-School Dance Into a Prayer Breakthrough

Summary

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Unashamed with the Robertson Family

Ep. 1269 | The Robertsons Turn a Middle-School Dance Into a Prayer Breakthrough
Date: February 13, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode centers on the Robertson family’s reflections on prayer, inspired by C.S. Lewis’s writings—particularly Letters to Malcolm, a book of contemplations on prayer. The discussion weaves together personal faith journeys, philosophical struggles, the pitfalls and beauty of prayer, and vivid analogies (including the metaphor of the middle-school dance) to illustrate moving from self-conscious ritual to joyful, participatory relationship with God.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Studying C.S. Lewis and Prayer

• The episode kicks off with the hosts (Zach, Al, Christian, Chris) reflecting on their group journey through Hillsdale College’s course on C.S. Lewis, specifically the fifth lecture focused on prayer.
• The group shares various degrees of familiarity and comfort with Lewis’s philosophy, noting how this particular lecture was more accessible, especially for those who’ve grappled with prayer in practical and emotional terms.

  “Lecture five was the most accessible for those like us, I would say.” —Al [01:04]

2. Personal Experiences: From Oxford to Broken Prayers

• Zach recounts his trip to Oxford and visiting spots connected to Lewis’s life, fostering a sense of tangibility about the spiritual themes discussed.
• They explore the origins of Letters to Malcolm, establishing that “Malcolm” is a literary device—a fictional correspondent through whom Lewis explores his struggles with and thoughts about prayer.

  “According to the Internet, according to Chat GBT, he’s not a real identifiable person in the historical sense. He’s a literary device…” —Zach [05:32]

3. Lewis’s Childhood, Prayer & Faith Crisis

• The hosts discuss Lewis’s personal history: as a boy, fervently praying for his mother’s healing and resurrection, then wrestling with spiritual disappointment when his prayers felt unheard—leading him away from faith.
• The group connects this to common modern experiences: loss, helplessness, and the sense of failed faith when prayers go apparently unanswered.

  “He walked away from God because of prayer, which is ironic.” —Christian [07:08]

4. The Burden of Sincerity vs. Joyful Participation

• Lewis’s journey with prayer is dissected: the trap of trying to be endlessly sincere (“the quest for ever increasing sincerity”), which can become burdensome and suffocating—contrasted with the possibility of simply enjoying God in prayer.

  “His quest for an ever increasing sincerity was what drove him in his prayer… as opposed to enjoyment of Christ in prayer.” —Zach [09:04]

• The struggle is familiar to the hosts: are our prayers too rote? Too thoughtless? Or too pressured by a need to perform? Chris notes feeling opposite from Lewis—sometimes, not religious enough in his prayer life.

  “I almost never think about when I’m going to pray before I start praying. And I actually think that is a little unfair to God…” —Chris [10:18]

5. Union of Wills & Pastoral Wisdom

• Christian shares his pastoral experiences, highlighting a nuanced approach: praying for specific outcomes (like healing) but also for the union of God’s will with human will—the “spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1–2)—helping families endure even when prayers aren’t answered as hoped.

  “We’re going to pray for healing… but we’re also going to pray for God’s will and for us to be… able to give him glory in that process.” —Christian [13:42]

6. Spiral of Self-Examination and Breaking Free

• The group explores how the never-ending spiral of self-examination can become a “self-imposed imprisonment”—akin to spiritual asceticism—that weighs a believer down, making authentic participation impossible.
• Zach warns that new interests in spiritual formation or liturgy, while often helpful, can risk devolving into spiritual self-improvement projects if disconnected from grace.

  “You become a black hole and you eventually collapse in on yourself… we’re actually created for the transcendent.” —Zach [36:41]

7. The Middle-School Dance Analogy

• The standout analogy of the episode compares prayer to a middle-school dance: standing in the corner, paralyzed by self-consciousness, unable to join in. The breakthrough comes when, like a seasoned adult at a family wedding, one participates freely and joyfully, forgetting the self.

  “I equate that to the middle — the kid at the middle school dance, like he’s over there in the corner and he’s watching the dance, but he’s not in the dance. Why? Because…” —Zach [29:08]

8. Romans 8 and the Outward Groaning

• The discussion turns to Romans 8 and the groaning of creation—a metaphor for our deepest longings and prayers that words cannot express. The hosts highlight how the Holy Spirit intercedes when we do not know how to pray, making prayer a “participatory” rather than merely contemplative experience.
• Prayer is reframed as a loving, ongoing conversation with God—akin to daily conversation with a beloved spouse—not as a performance.

  “It’s God speaking to God because God lives in us, because the Holy Spirit. And when you think about it that way, man, that’s very exciting about prayer.” —Christian [23:35]

9. Scripture: The Divine Word and the Written Word

• The second half of the episode explores how the Bible is approached: Lewis, and the group, emphasize that Jesus is the “divine word”—the living center of scripture. Misreading the Bible as mere rule-book (and missing its Christ-centeredness) can repeat the inward, self-effort mistake.
• The hosts discuss biblical genres, parables, and the limits of literal reading, with insights into Lewis and Tolkien’s different approaches to scripture and analogy.

  “...my opinion, his contribution to the Christian faith… for me, he was great at painting that more imaginative imagination… not a theologian.” —Zach [42:01]

10. Breaking Out of the Circle: Embracing the Dance

• Zach and Al emphasize Lewis’s metaphor of escaping the “circle” or “spell” of inwardness—stepping out of self-imposed limits and into authentic relationship with God.

  “The point is, go enjoy the dance. Like, can you just quit thinking about the dance and watching the dance and observing the dance and contemplating how you’re going to fit in the dance and just… go dance?” —Zach [45:15]

11. Christ as the Hermeneutical Key

• The episode wraps by underscoring that Christ is the key to understanding all scripture (citing Luke 24 and John 5:39)—knowledge by acquaintance, not just abstraction—so that faith ignites not only contemplation, but the “burning heart” of joyful participation.

  “Christ is the hermeneutical key to studying and applying the Bible. And I think that’s so true.” —Christian [46:30]
  “When you realize that all the scriptures point to who he is… now you’re in the dance, the only thing that can happen from that is that your heart burns…” —Zach [48:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the burden of prayer:
  “It was his own spiral of what he called… the quest for ever increasing sincerity instead of enjoyment. …The more sincere that I become, all it really does is it illuminates… how sincere that I’m not.” —Zach [16:44]

• Pastoral honesty:
  “We’re going to pray for complete recovery… but we’re also going to pray for God’s will… If it doesn’t, then we’re going to… give him glory. But we’re all going to die, you know?” —Christian [13:42]

• Middle school dance as metaphor:
  “...it's like the quintessential high school movie. What do the young boys do at the dance? They stand in the corner... watching the dance, and they want to be involved in it, but they're so into themselves...” —Zach [28:34]

• Jesus as the hermeneutic:
  “He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself... That really becomes the whole point, right?” —Christian [46:30]

• Participating in the divine dance:
  “What Christ is bringing us into is not just a contemplation... It is an invitation to participate in the divine dance...” —Zach [45:41]

• On breaking free:
  “When you realize that all the scriptures point to who he is and... now you’re in the dance, the only thing that can happen from that is that your heart burns...” —Zach [48:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:01–03:00] — Intro, Hillsdale course on C.S. Lewis, visiting Oxford & Lewis sites
• [04:35–06:53] — Letters to Malcolm: background, fictional device, Lewis’s troubles with prayer
• [07:53–13:20] — Lewis’s faith crisis from childhood, sincerity vs. joy, personal stories about prayer struggles
• [13:21–20:24] — Pastoral wisdom about union of wills; unanswered prayers & faith; dangers of self-driven sincerity
• [23:20–26:43] — Romans 8 & the groaning of creation; prayer as participatory relationship
• [27:04–33:27] — Middle-school dance analogy: self-consciousness vs. joyful participation
• [35:11–37:59] — Breaking out of self-imposed spiritual ‘circle’ (asceticism, black holes, transcendence)
• [39:57–43:51] — The Word of God: divine word vs. written word, genre in Bible, not reading all scripture literally
• [45:15–48:14] — Escaping the circle, the dance, Christ as hermeneutical key, hearts burning on the road to Emmaus

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The Episode's Overall Tone

The tone is warm, lively, and honest, mixing humorous and vulnerable personal anecdotes (from school dances to prayer rituals) with theologically probing questions. There’s camaraderie and encouragement for listeners to join in both the intellectual study and the lived experience of faith. The language is accessible, homespun, and often gently self-mocking, embodying both sincerity and joy.

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Conclusion

This episode interlaces Lewis’s intellectual wrestling with prayer with the family’s own struggles and breakthroughs, offering listeners an invitation to move from self-focused introspection to embodied, relational joy with God—a step onto the “divine dance floor.” The spiritual breakthrough is not in striving for the “perfect prayer,” but in joining the dance, embracing Christ as the burning center, and finding freedom in participation rather than mere contemplation.

Transcript

[Zach]

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back. Here we are yet once again, unashamed for Hillsdale Friday. We do this every Friday. It's a free course. We actually have taken several now, and we are now into a course on C.S. lewis.

[Al]

C.S. lewis on Christianity.

[Zach]

We're taking C.S. lewis on Christianity with Hillsdale. You go to unashamedforhillsdale.com sign up for free. We're in lecture five, and we are now CS list experts, I would say. Al, do you feel like an expert?

[Christian]

I do not. I do not feel like I'm an expert, but I am learning to appreciate the philosophical ways of Dr. Lewis, but also of John, Luke, and you, Zach, the different ways you view things. And so the whole time I've been taking these courses, anytime I can't understand something, I always take joy in knowing that y' all are loving what I. I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain. And Chris and I are totally in the same.

[Al]

We're in the same camp. However, Lecture five was the most accessible for those like us, I would say. So.

[Christian]

Yes. Yes. This is really good one. I struggle with the last one, but this one spoke to me because it's about prayer in the Bible, which, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about from the word of God.

[Al]

And it started out being a relatable, like you talked about. Lecture four started out a little way above our heads, but Lecture 5 started out talking about prayer and kind of what led to Lewis's intensified prayer, but also what led him to abandon it. And I feel like the reasons for both were relatable for things we kind of go through. So, yeah, I thought the way Lecture 5 started was really interesting.

[Zach]

We. What's interesting about this episode was that Jill and I, we went to London last year for a conference on. Ironically, it was on Western Civilization, I think. Christian, you were there.

[Al]

Zach, you knew I was there.

[Christian]

You were there.

[Zach]

We had dinner.

[Al]

I think you were there.

[Zach]

Well, I just. It just hit me as I was.

[Christian]

Saying we were there.

[Al]

Like, we were there, like, the whole time together.

[Zach]

Yeah, we hung it.

[Christian]

I seem to remember some hulking figure that sat nearby. Was it a bodyguard or was it Christian?

[Al]

And we had the same reactions every lecture. I was like, what do they talk about? You were like, this is the greatest thing ever.

[Christian]

He's like. He's like the kid in the candy store. And you're like, I want to go somewhere and do something fun.

[Zach]

It was good. It was a great conference. Well, Jill and I said, an extra few days, I Mean, when you're in, you know, when in Rome, when in London, when in Europe, you know, you want to. If you're flying over there, it's a. It's what, 10 hour flight. So you're, you know, pack it in a few more days.

[Christian]

I'm the same way, Zach, because we travel. I travel for a living. But I mean, if I'm going to go that far, we're not going to turn around because, dad, we go someplace really cool, and dad be like, let's get back today. And I'd be like, dad, we've come all this way. We're right here in Buffalo. Can we not go look at Niagara Falls? No, I've seen water.

[Zach]

Well, I was going to massive. If we're going to. If we're going to spend the money to come over here, we're going to. More importantly, we're going to spend 10 hours on a plane and. Which is brutal. And I'm going to stay a few more days. So we did the conference, which was about two and a half days in London, and then we went to Oxford, which is where CS Lewis taught and where a lot of this story takes place, in Oxford, England. So we spent some time in Oxford. We were able to go to the kilns, which is where his house is, and we did the tour of that. And then we ended up just after that, we said, let's go see the church, which is all mentioned in this episode, the Holy Trinity Church where he attended. And then we went to his grave site where he was buried. And what was interesting is too, is that we met a guy when we were there at the grave site and we started talking and I found out that he was also in the entertainment business and. But he was a big CS Lewis fan and he was working on an animation project written by another gentleman who was mentioned. And I believe this podcast, the last one, George McDonald, who wrote the Princess and the Goblin. And so he. They're trying to bring back the Princess and the Goblins in the public domain now, but they're going to do a, like a animation project on that. So it's kind of like a full circle moment for us. And then. So when I was going through this lecture, it was cool because I'd gone to a lot of these places and got to kind of sit in the Story of Lewis for a little bit. So I found this episode to be extremely accessible too, maybe because I went there, but also I thought it was great.

[Christian]

It's based on the. The book A Conversation with Malcolm, which was did they not say. Did he said.

[Al]

It came out a year after he.

[Christian]

Yeah. So it was the last book ever published by C.S.

[Chris]

Lewis and Letters to Malcolm.

[Christian]

Letters to Malcolm. And was that. Have you read that? So is it good? I mean, what did you like about the book? Or what do you remember about it?

[Chris]

Yeah, it's him. It's literally letters to Malcolm. And so he's just kind of writing his thoughts as he's praying to his friend. And it's like we've been talking about.

[Christian]

With all these books.

[Chris]

It's really not him teaching. It's just him contemplating prayer and his own prayer life and what he struggles with and what he doesn't.

[Christian]

Yeah, yeah. And so Malcolm is just like a fictional person then? Or is it like a real person? Or do you know? Is that part of it?

[Chris]

I actually can't remember, but I think he's a real person. I think he's.

[Zach]

No, he's not real. He's not real. And the only reason why I know that is because as y' all were talking, I was on the Internet looking up, who is Malcolm? And so, according to the Internet, according to Chat gbt, he's not a real identifiable person in the historical sense. He's a. He's a literary device that he uses.

[Christian]

Okay.

[Zach]

To make the point.

[Christian]

So it's kind of classic Lewis from what I'm getting now.

[Chris]

Okay. Right. Yeah. Now I'm looking at it, because we have the book right here, fictional letters between two characters. But I want to say I read a. Or watched something on it, and it was based off his letters.

[Christian]

Oh, to someone else.

[Chris]

It was based off his letters to someone else, but he wrote a fictional.

[Christian]

Book about it, which, by the way, that's one of the things I've enjoyed Dr. Ward doing because he is a obviously a CS Lewis, like, archive expert person, and he has a lot of the stuff in these lectures are from letters that C.S. lewis wrote to different people. And in fact, that's the core of the whole thing at prayer was. You remember some letters he wrote to his brother where he basically was saying why he didn't like prayer, you know, and something about they weren't getting to. The brother had a wrong address, and so he said yes. Much like prayer, you're not sure it's being delivered to the person.

[Al]

You never get a reply, or you.

[Christian]

Never get a reply. And so, ironically, prayer is what led CS Lewis to atheism and from his. When he was a young boy, because his mom had cancer and he was 9 years old, and he's praying for his mom. And just imagine, I mean, I think back to my nine year old self because now I'm looking at my grandchildren, that's most of their ages, four of them are right there. And if their mom gets sick and you believe. Because our family believes in God and then she dies. And then he said that he prayed for her to resurrect, which again, from what he had heard about Christianity was possible. I mean, Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, who was sick. And then that didn't happen. And then it says he got more earnest in his prayer. And then he got into these almost ritualized contemplative prayers which then became so laborious that by the time the poor kid was 13 years old and he was obviously already brilliant in terms of his mind, it was just too much. And so he walked away from God because of prayer, which is ironic.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Al]

And he said it was like the greatest freedom he had felt. Yeah, right.

[Christian]

He said he finally felt free.

[Zach]

Yeah. Being released from the burden of this. I thought this was episode actually spoke to the human experience, particularly in religious circles. I know because I grew up like this and I grew up thinking about prayer in this way. But the whole lecture really, this whole book is centered on like really what is prayer. But it's kind of bigger than that too. I think. It's what, I think it's through prayer and how he, how he maybe accessed prayer in his early life versus his later life. Like it's, he's showing really the whole story of what we've been talking about this whole time about entering in and participating, participating in the story of Christ versus just contemplation about Christ. And one of the things that he says about prayer was he said he found himself after his mom died and he had, you know, gone through that, that series that Al just mentioned. He says I went in and. And was praying even more fervently. But his quest for an ever increasing sincerity was what drove him in his prayer. Just come like I got to be more and more sincere as opposed to enjoyment of Christ in prayer.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And I, I've struggled with that. I still struggle with like this never ending spiral as he calls it in the lecture of I want to be more and more sincere in what I'm doing. But it's almost crippling to the, if you let, if you let that, that quest can destroy you. The quest for sincerity. Because it's like at the end of the day, guess what? I actually do lack sincerity. And it Robs me of the ability to actually enjoy it. It's. It's not even like, opposed to one another. I feel like we're talking about two different parallel. Like two different universes, really. You know what I mean? And he had to escape one to get into the other. But I thought that was really interesting.

[Chris]

Yeah, that was actually. I felt challenged by the opposite point he was making. Like, he was making the point that he was. He felt burdened by prayer because it got so, you know, religious. Which I thought about my own prayer life and I thought, I don't think I'm religious enough. Like, I've, especially this past year, started reading liturgies and thinking kind of about prayer more. Because I kind of got to the point where I was like, I'm saying these prayers, but it's really just like, I'm like, okay, prayer time before, after meal or at night. And I'm just saying whatever comes to my mind in the moment. But he had this line where he said, like, do we think. What do I think about my prayers? How do I think about my prayers before I pray them? And I thought, I almost never think about when I'm going to pray before I start praying. And I actually think that is a little unfair to God. Whenever he's supposed to be my greatest love and greatest joy. Just to anyone else who I'm talking to. After this, after we do this, I'm going to call my dad and I'm thinking about what I'm going to tell him when I call him, get on the phone. You know, just purpose. I have a purpose. Yeah. Just. It was challenging to me of just in my own life, like, okay, I think I can put a little more effort into what I'm praying about.

[Zach]

I don't think it's like one over the other, so to speak.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Because in the last podcast you were talking about, you were talking about. You even said this like, it's through the experience of Christ. I forgot how you said it, but that we can actually start to think about him. And then the last lecture, one of the points that I thought was a key point was that when you think about enjoyment versus contemplation, it's not verses, really.

[Chris]

Oh, yeah.

[Zach]

Probably the wrong.

[Al]

It's.

[Zach]

It's that Lewis's point. It's not against contemplation. Like, we do compliment. I mean, read. Read everything C.S. lewis wrote. Obviously, this was a man who contemplated a lot.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The point is, is that it's through the enjoyment of Christ and the participation with the Holy Spirit. That you can truly complicate, contemplate the things of God. So contemplation is not that we're not disregarding it, it's just secondary. And I think in prayer, in the same way, like whatever the, the dilemma that you have about prayer, it's, it's, it one is amplified by the other.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And we've all experienced that prayer of the unanswered prayer thing. We've all experienced that. I was thinking about a girl at our church whose mom died of cancer and someone prophesied that her mom would be healed and she wasn't. And that was devastating for her faith because she really believed. And that's not the first time. I know lots of people who have had those kind of experiences. We said the prayer, we did the thing, we were, they were prophesied all the things that you think God. And so in their mind, God didn't show up, God didn't listen. We've all experienced that side of it. And I think we've also experienced the part where we're going to somehow bootstrap this thing up. And in our own sincerity, we're going to contemplate ourselves into some, some sense of like sincerity that's going to yield some result too. And, and then, and we end up just like empty handed and we're like, oh my gosh, what is God even listening? I mean, I, I have that definitely felt that in my life.

[Christian]

Well, we want you to take the course with us. It's free, unashamed for hillsdale.com is where you go to take it. You know, obviously spending a, you know, as much, many years as I have in ministry and pastoring people, man, I've been in a lot of bedsides, a lot of hospitals, a lot of gravesides in moments, you know, where people have this exact same struggle and so, and they're looking to you, you know, to give them some sort of guidance. And so one of the points that really spoke to me from the lecture that I have used and I just did it out of, to be honest with you, out of just trying to find a place to help people, not knowing what was going to happen. You know, we were praying. It's not that we don't believe, but we're not sure. And it was this concept he said, he called it the union of wills, in other words, where the will of God and our will merge into this relationship. And I wrote down, I don't think he mentioned Romans 12:1 and 2, but I wrote down Romans 12:1 and 2 because that's kind of what Paul's bringing into that passage, right? That. That spiritual act of worship. He talks about that then we understand what God's good, perfect will is for us. But we're always struggling with that, right? Because we have our will and we have God's will, and we're not always sure where that fits in. And so we're having this conversation really kind of not knowing exactly how this is going to play out. And so early on, when I would pray with families, I would say I would be very honest. We're going to pray for healing. We're going to pray for complete recovery. That's our will. That's what we want. I mean, that's what this family is wanting around their mom, their dad, their sister, whoever. But we're also going to pray for God's will and for us to be. For you guys, our family here, our forever family, to be able to live in wherever we go and to be able to give him glory in that process. I always wanted to leave the door open that you may not. This person may not survive this particular thing. And if they don't, does that mean it's all for not, you know, because again, like you said, Z, we're trying to not dash people's faith by saying it has to be this way. And so it wasn't like I was hedging my bets. It was more like saying, we just don't know. So we're trusting in God to help us. If this is the way, if God, if. If our will lines up with your will, then we're going to be even more joyful. If it doesn't, then we're going to have to figure out how to work through this. But we're all going to die, you know, and that. I don't. I didn't say that. But I also know we're all going to die at some point. I mean, at some point, some disease does take you out or something, or some accident or some tragedy. And so ultimately it's. Do we have the relationship with God to know that our eternity has already begun when we became sons and daughters of the Almighty? So, I mean, that's the way I always approach it with prayer in terms of those moments. Because you're right, I've been with so many families that people walked away. They walked away from their faith like Lewis did, over what they took to be an unanswered prayer. And Smith helped me a lot, my mentor, because one of the things he taught about prayer, he said, we always just think of it as yes or no, but there's other answers that God gives us. Sometimes it's weight, sometimes it's. Sometimes it's maybe. And then he would go back and.

[Zach]

Sometimes just no, but yes, because Garth Brooks prayed a prayer one time and that he'd marry his high school sweetheart, and he ran into her at a high school football game, and he was like, oh, God was not good to her. And he was thankful. He actually wrote a whole song about it. I thank God for unanswered prayers. But with Lewis, though, what's interesting about his story in. In Letters to Malcolm, too, is that he. It wasn't the unanswered prayer of his mother that pushed him away. I think this is key to the book. It was his own spiral of what he called the. Well, it was the doctor Ward called it the quest for ever increasing sincerity instead of enjoyment. And the reason why that was what pushed him away is if you have to think about it, like it's a spiral downward. I think he called it a cycle, but he said it really was a spiral. It wasn't like a bicycle. It was more like a spiral downward. And the way that you or I may have experienced this is that I'm gonna. I'm gonna posture myself into a position of prayer repetitively and rhythmically and liturgically, if you want to use that word. And in doing so, what I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm trying to find a more sincere version of my approach to God. But the problem is, is the more sincere that I become, all it really does is it illuminates houses how sincere that I'm not. And so you enter into that spiral, and then it becomes a weight on top of you. It's one of the. One of the things I. That I think is a danger of kind of this new movement back into liturgy and spiritual formation, which I'm a big fan of. But one of the dangers of it is that you can move into. To a form of what the Bible calls asceticism. In Colossians, chapter two, it talks about this, but it's essentially that you're going to somehow deny yourself enough that you're going to somehow purify yourself through these rhythms and through this discipline, that you're going to somehow bootstrap yourself up in your own righteousness. And so you can imagine when you pile that on a person, you pile that on yourself, like Lewis was doing, it just starts to just weigh you down. So when he finally was like, I'm done with this, he Felt like he broke through in that moment.

[Chris]

I get that it wasn't that Lewis was angry that God didn't answer the prayer. It was that Lewis was angry that God didn't think he himself was sincere enough in his prayers. He was angry with himself thinking, I'm not praying with enough faith, and that's why God's not answering my prayer. And that led him to have the.

[Christian]

Breakdown and that he must not be there. But I do think that it was out of the pain that shaped him into that, because that's a traumatic thing to lose your mom at any point in time, but especially if you're a kid. I mean, obviously Lewis was a pretty smart kid. He's having these thoughts at 9, 10, 11 years old, but he still was a kid who lost his mom, and that had to hurt deeply. Why don't you take the course with us? It's [e-mail] and in this lecture, we're talking about prayer and eventually talking about the word of God as well, and the relationship that it plays.

[Al]

Yeah, it said that if Lewis said if God did exist, that he believed God to be outside and in opposition to the cosmic arrangements, which I think is a. A deeper way of saying what Zach. In opposition to cosmic arrangements, just like he doesn't care. Would that be. Would that would be true?

[Zach]

Yeah, he's just.

[Christian]

He's kind of a deist approach.

[Zach]

Yeah, kind of a deist approach, which is what the term. I think this. This when he called him a theist. But in the first few lectures that he said Lewis was somewhat of a deist with God's wounded up and he's just kind of back, you know, watching the whole thing unfold. But. But when. When I think about. Actually, we. We're in a series on prayer at our church right now. So I. I love this lecture because he connects the prayer life. There's a. There's a core text that ward and, And. And I guess Lewis, extrapolating from Lewis's work, connected this whole idea to, which was Romans 8. And, and I don't think he maybe went into some of the even further imagery of Romans 8 When it comes to the Garden of Eden that, that I've read and preached on last week. So it was weird that we're preaching prayer. And I went to Romans 8 because there's a passage in Romans 8 where Paul's like, the creation itself is groaning with eager expectations, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. So the creation itself groans, and then the. And Then Paul goes on to say that, and we are also groaning as, as creatures. And it says the Spirit, when we don't, when we don't know what to pray for and we just go to God, he says, the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8, 26. Yeah, and I think that's the, the picture that he's talking about here is much more of a participatory picture. So I was, when I was talking about this on Sunday, it's like, hit me, when I was studying it, I was like, why in the world would creation, why would creation groan with eager expectation, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed? Why does creation want and desire the sons of God to be revealed? And the answer, it goes back to that tin biscuit top that he built the garden on. Remember his brother built the garden on the tin plate. And that was the first time that he had experienced joy. And then at his conversion experience, it was in a garden, it was in a zoo that he equated to the garden. And so here's why, if you read the Bible correctly through a biblical eschatology, that the reason why that creation is wanting the sons of God to be revealed is because of Genesis 1:28, that it is the sons of Adam, the sons of God, who will cultivate the garden and expand it across the entire globe. The creation wants to be liberated from its bondage of decay. According to the Apostle Paul, that's going to happen through spirit filled believers cultivating the earth. And so that is the longing that is the expert. That's what's happening here. So when we're, we don't know what we want. Like we have this desire and we want it. We're trying to pray and we're like, I don't even know what to pray for. I'm just like, the Holy Spirit comes in and he intercedes and he takes that with groans. That words can express a longing for creation, for heaven and earth to be reunited. This is what CS Lewis was getting at. And that's why the whole thing is like that thread of the garden and Eden is in the entire story of his conversion. That makes sense.

[Christian]

Yeah. And your point out of Romans 8 is really a strong one. And the way he put it was the Christian is an articulation of God's word. So in essence, the way he put it was when we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit and in prayer and in conversation, sometimes we, as the human part of us doesn't always know how to communicate, but the Holy Spirit does. So in essence, it's God speaking to God because God lives in us, because the Holy Spirit. And when you think about it that way, man, that's very exciting about prayer. And, Zach, we had the same kind of realization. We were talking about this on the other, unashamed, when we were talking about in first John. And I love this picture that it makes me want to talk more, kind of like what John Luke was talking about. It makes me want to have more conversations because that connects me more with the Holy Spirit living inside of me, to be able to have these conversations with the creator of the cosmos. And I've always viewed it as, I guess, more conversational. I try to just open a conversation at the beginning of every day, sort of. I do with Lisa. I mean, we greet each other every morning when. After we get up, and that may be at different times or whatever, but it's always good morning. Has it been, how'd you sleep last night? It starts a conversation that won't end again until we tell each other good night. And so we have that ongoing conversation all day. It may be text, it may be calls, it may be this, it may be dealing with something, but it may just be, what are you doing? I was just thinking about you. And so I've tried to approach my relationship with God the same way. I could be wrestling with something deep and heavy, and I could be with somebody that's in need of some specific prayer, but it could just be, you know, I was just thinking about something, and I just had that conversation just like we're talking. And it seems weird because I'm driving down the road, turn the radio off, and I just have a conversation, and then I turn the music back on and we pick back up. So that's the way I try to view it. And maybe that's not quite reverent as it should be, or could be more, because I'm like you.

[Chris]

Well, I think I was. I was kind of saying the point. I think it's both. I mean, I think it's. You have a conversation with Christ because you are in a relationship, and that's. I think that is the right way to think about it. I think on more the liturgical side, the benefit of that is if you're not praying.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Chris]

If you're going from zero.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I think it's easier to something read a psalm or read a liturgy to get into the habit of it and kind of start from that. Kind of Start from that view. And then as you get into the Habit of praying, you start to build your conversation, but you also can just, you know, start talking. I think it's both. And I think if you go to one extreme, I think, Zach, that's. To your point earlier, one extreme or the other is bad. You know, like, if you're only doing it in this, like, religious sense of, like, this is the time I pray. This is the words I say, you lose the relationship, but then you can go all the way to the other side where you just never pray.

[Zach]

You know, you just don't do it. Yeah, I mean, I think. I think a lot of people don't pray for that because it's like, you know, they give up on it. But I was thinking of a good analogy would be. But I don't know Yalls. High school stories, but did y' all have dances at your high school? Because we did, but I know. I don't know if OCS had dances.

[Chris]

We did not.

[Zach]

Al, do you. Did you go to the dances growing up?

[Christian]

I wasn't much of a. I was kind of a loner those days.

[Al]

We went to the party after the dances.

[Zach]

We didn't go to the party.

[Chris]

It was the after party, the time your high school would be having dance. You were there.

[Christian]

Yeah, I wasn't much of a dancer. And, you know, I. I like. Yeah, I'm kind of, like, Christian. I was more for what happened after.

[Al]

Yeah, we were at the after party.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah, I was sent.

[Christian]

I was.

[Chris]

We were.

[Christian]

I was in the middle of my prodigal wandering. Zach, thanks for bringing that up.

[Al]

Me and Zach, or me and Al are a lot of, like.

[Zach]

Yeah, y' all are just heathens.

[Al]

I was.

[Christian]

We came to Christ. We married great women.

[Zach]

We had a tradition at our school that and. And our school was small enough to where, like, it was seventh grade all the way up to. We started at seventh grade. If you want to go to dance. I think it was seventh grade. But the juniors in high school, they would actually, like, sponsor every dance, and they would have a dance after every football game, home football game, and that was pretty much the whole time I grew up. And then whatever money collected went to pay for the prom. And so, you know, when I was younger, we would go to the dance, and, you know, it's like the quintessential high school movie. What. What are the. What are the young boys do with the dance? They stand in the corner and they're like. You know, they're like. They're watching the dance, and they want to be involved in it, but they're so into themselves that it's like an insecure.

[Christian]

Like a scene out of Stranger Things, you know?

[Zach]

That's right.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach]

It's like.

[Christian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

And the reason why that's in every movie about like kids growing up and coming of age is because, like, that is like we all have had some version of that experience, whether it was a dance or banquet or whatever. But I like the dance analogy because C.S. lewis uses that. That and that the. The term was parachoresis. But if you think about that, when you think about his. When he talks about the spiral or the cycle. I forgot the term that he actually used. It was called the cycle. It was in a letter or something he wrote. What was. Do I remember the name of that.

[Al]

What the bird said earlier in the. Earlier in the year.

[Zach]

Well, that's where he came to in the end. But there was he. He had written a cycle of lyrics. A cycle of lyrics which he published in 19. Which is published in 1919. And so the idea is that there he's in some kind of spiral. And that spiral is again in his prayer life, the ever increasing quest for sincerity. So it's really a lot of self examination. It's really a lot of self evaluation, which can be a good thing. Right. Self introspection is the thing that we should all strive for and not become narcissists. But. But what was happening in his prayer life, it was just overwhelming him. And I equate that to the middle. The kid at the middle school dance, like he's over there in the corner and he's watching the dance, but he's not in the dance. Why? Because he's like, what if I go over there and I ask Susie for a dance and she rejects me and I'm so scared and I've never kissed a girl before. I don't even know how to dance. What if I step on her toe? And all the insecurities that come in. Right?

[Christian]

And I said, what male on the planet is not their. One of their greatest fears is to be rejected, especially by a woman.

[Zach]

Yeah. Crazy about the one you think is pretty. Especially when you're in the seventh grade.

[Christian]

And embarrass you and front of everybody else. Which is the second greatest beer.

[Zach]

I mean, I'm thinking of a name right now, particularly. I don't want to say her name.

[Al]

Did you get rejected at a school dance? Is this.

[Christian]

We're about to go. I'm sensing I went in.

[Zach]

Well, I'd finally mustered up the screen to go ask this girl to dance. And she was actually. I'm in eighth grade. And she's actually my girlfriend too. Like, we like. But we never, like, talked before. You know, it's kind of like we like to each other. We said we were going out, which was the thing back then.

[Christian]

Keep going. Unburden yourself.

[Zach]

I went in for the kiss, and I wanted the kiss on the lips, but she did this move right here. How about. And she even said, how about on the cheek? And I was like, that's.

[Al]

That's still good.

[Zach]

I mean, at the time, I felt. I. I felt rejected.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And then I was dejected and I.

[Al]

Was like, wait, so you said. You said y' all were boyfriend and girlfriend, but yet you've never talked?

[Zach]

Never talked. First dance, we talked as friends. But once we started dating, that's what.

[Chris]

Led him into apologetics.

[Al]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But you know what I'm saying that you're out there, and the whole time it's like just self introspection, and it's like the spiral into my own self examination that I can't even participate in the dance. And now you fast forward and I'll give you another experience that I had when Laila got married. And now I'm married to the love of my life. Been married at that point for 22 years. And I have five kids. I've paid for this wedding, you know, all this going on, like a life built. And Al, you were there, and the dance floor was just like. Everybody was dancing.

[Christian]

I was hopping.

[Zach]

It was hopping and I was dancing. And I never thought. I was never in my own head. You see what I'm saying?

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Like, I wasn't in my own head thinking, well, if I go out there, I wonder if Jill's gonna reject me. I'm like, she gonna reject me. I got five kids with this woman. I got a whole. Like, we got a life together, right? But because we're in it now, I'm actually living in the experience. I'm actually in the dance now. And when you're in the dance, you're not thinking about being in the dance. You're just in the dance. You're. You're dancing with the people that you love, and you're just. You're lost in it. And that's the picture when he says that he needed to break out of the spell, you know, that spell of his circular existence. Because you remember, that's where I was.

[Al]

Just about to ask you about that. Keep going. Yeah, that was where I was.

[Zach]

Go ahead. What were you going to say?

[Al]

No, I was because this kind of ties into the middle school dance because I was kind of confused because we shall escape the circle and undo the spell. And Dr. Wolver saying that means like an escape from the self imposed imprisonment that alienates us from God. Which kind of was like you at the dance. You've, you kind of self impose your disapprisonment in the corner. And it also kind of ties back into what John Luke said earlier. That was Lewis's frustration was that not, not necessarily that God did not answer the prayer, but that he had convinced himself that he wasn't praying fervently. And yeah, you end up being in this self imposed imprisonment that God necessarily did not put.

[Christian]

And remember Zach, you, you brought up the idea of time in your analogy to yourself as this eighth grade kid to, you know, then having a child, your first child, get married. And that's Lewis, because remember this work about this. The cycle was 1919. He was still an atheist when he wrote that. And so to show that person who then this last book, of course he's even already gone on crossed over to the await the resurrection. So that's over the course of time. You do figure out how to get in. If you're doing it, you know, Christ's way, you figure out how to get into the dance. We want you to take this course with us. It's free at unashamedforhillsdale.com yes.

[Al]

What are your thoughts on that quote, Zach? We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.

[Zach]

Well, I want to say one thing that you just said I thought was so ironic and I don't, I mean just appropriate. You used a phrase. I had to look this up in the niv and I hope it's correct. And I know, I know it was. Yeah, it's in the, it's in the niv. So I'd mention you'd use a phrase. You just use this phrase. You called it self imposed prison imprisonment. Yeah. So think about self imposed. Like that phrase, self imposed. And earlier I was equating to what Lewis is talking about with that idea of, of asceticism, which is you're, you're trying to, you're. It's all the self introspection. Not that that's bad in itself, but when it gets an overload that becomes the center of it all, then it is bad. And listen to what Paul says when he actually uses that word in the, in the esv, he uses the word asceticism and the niv. This is how he says it. Such regulations indeed have the appearance of wisdom with their self imposed worship.

[Christian]

Wow.

[Zach]

Their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body. But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. And so it really is like this inward pursuit.

[Christian]

Do what?

[Al]

Don't we call it nasal gazing?

[Zach]

Yeah, well, yeah, that's what you're, you're looking, you're. You're just sitting there looking at yourself. And so when he says that we break out of the spell. What he's talking about is a circular existence. You can't. Like we have a longing that. When we talked about earlier about that. That longing of. For the joy and all the longing is actually for the transcendent. Like if everything that you're doing is inward, inward focused and you actually become a black hole. And the one thing about black holes is that nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. Not well, except for Hawking radiation, but nothing can escape the. The gravitational pull. It just pulls in everything around it. And then we become drop in a hockey.

[Al]

I'm sorry, you're gonna say like Superman.

[Christian]

I said it.

[Zach]

I thought somebody's gonna fact check and they're gonna find that little nuance.

[Christian]

I bet you knew that. I was like, wow. Yeah, I was gonna say that. But you said it before I could.

[Chris]

I could, I could see y' all look at each other in the screen and I started laughing. I was trying to hold it in.

[Christian]

I was just about to say, except for Hogwart Revolution.

[Zach]

Yeah, well, my, my point was that you become. When you're, if you're. If you're existing in the way that he was existing in his prayer life, with the ever increasing quest for sincerity, you become a black hole and you eventually collapse in on yourself. And so that when we're actually created to not exist inwardly but to exist outwardly and to express outwardly and to overflow as God overflows because we're made in his image. And so we're actually created for the transcendent. And so that's why he says that you break out of the spell of circular reasoning. And that's when he brought in the whole Romans 8 passage that the spirit intercedes. We come in with a longing that we can't even express. And that's the point. We can't express a longing for the eternal because it's eternal. It's God. It's who he is. He's infinite. And we'll never actually get to the end of that. And that is the whole point of the new creation that God is bringing forth in Romans 8 talks about this, but that's what we're pushing towards. And so you get out of that. And then what it does is it doesn't only give you context now, it also gives you the infinite to push into, which is God, so you never consume Him.

[Christian]

So, Zach, that's a perfect segue into the last segment here, which was the second part of the lecture, which was, first part was about prayer and this relationship you just described. And then the second part was about the role of the Word of God in that same process. And he had basically two reflections in the lecture, and they're both excellent, but the first one goes with what you just said, and that's to clarify that the divine word is different from the written word. And. And a lot of people miss that. So all the things you were just describing about making this into this somehow cycle of aesthetics and things we do, it's the same thing with the Word of God. The original, the divine word of God is Jesus. And that's the way the writers looked at it. And we talk about this a lot on the other, unashamed, that everything was written to point to him. And you already quoted, I think, in the last podcast, Zach, John 5. 39, which was Jesus himself saying, you study these scriptures that are about me and yet you reject me, which still happens to this day, because, again, you're trying to build something up that you can do or you can know. But if you miss the whole point of it, which is the relationship with Jesus, then you've missed the whole point of it. And so that was the first thing he said about that. Of course, he quoted John 1, 1 and 2 and then 14, that we know from John and we know from Jesus himself that he is the word of life. And then the second point, and then we can discuss it, was that you also that Lewis knew you had to distinguish the different genres of the Bible to understand the Bible. These are, you know, they were written differently with different purposes. And he used the parables as his illustration of how Jesus talked about that. And, you know, in the moment of these didn't have historical context because they were parables. They were about people that he had come up with. So, yeah, I hadn't thought about those.

[Al]

Not being real people, like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, because I just thought about that happening, you know, maybe at some point, but I hadn't thought about that, as in he's not actually trying to give, like, an historical account of that. It's just. Yeah, the idea of that right and.

[Christian]

Of course, we can all agree with the ones on the parables when he got into Jonah. Then people get a little bit more. Oh, I don't know about that.

[Chris]

Well, I thought that was funny on Jonah. I gave a sermon last year on Jonah and the genre. Genre of Jonah. And my whole. The whole point was the closest thing we have to Jonah today is sketch comedy.

[Christian]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And that's the genre. Like, that's what it was like, it was a sketch. It was like what you would see on Saturday Night Live.

[Christian]

That's right.

[Chris]

And when I said that you could see everyone in the room, like, hold on, like what? Which I thought I was kind of affirming me that Lewis said basically the same thing. This is one of my favorite things about C.S. lewis and kind of why I said in the beginning too, that I think if he was writing today, people would not. He would get a lot of criticism. And this was. He got a lot of criticism back in the day. This was J.R. tolkien. One of his biggest criticisms of Lewis and all of his books, and specifically the Chronicles Sarnia, is that Lewis didn't. Was playing a little too fast and loose with his analogies and not focusing so much on the historicity of the Bible or even really. Yeah, that was it. Just playing fast and loose with the Bible and with his analogies and stretching things further than what the context would.

[Zach]

Well, he wasn't. I mean, he wasn't a theologian. I think it'd be a mistake to read. To read C.S. lewis through the lens of like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna grab my theology from what he wrote.

[Chris]

Right.

[Zach]

That's not really, in my opinion, his contribution to the Christian faith, although his contribution is massive and has been very massive in my own life. For me, he was great at painting that more imaginative imagination. And he's not. He was. I mean, self admittedly was not a.

[Christian]

Theologian, you know, Zach, in the modern vernacular, you know who. It's just like. It's just like Dallas Jenkins. I mean, we've had him on our podcast several times and his work is amazing. I mean, the Chosen has done so much and it's such an amazing work. But he says it's. It's my vision of the people around Jesus and I'm telling stories. I'm not a theologian. I'm not. You know, and he says it over and over. He's like, I'm making a entertainment, you know.

[Zach]

Well, yeah, I think with Lewis, though, is his point on scripture we should listen to though, because I, I've. I'VE ran into this. A lot of, like, people say, do you interpret the Bible literally? And I'm like, well, yes, but I also interpret the Bible poetically. I have to interpret. I mean, there's a lot of different ways. Like, there's. Scripture is not all written in the same exact framework. I mean, you have poetry, you have law, you have history, you have a lot of different things in there. And if you try to app across the board, it's not going to hold steady. Like one guy, when we were going through our series on Isaiah, which had implications to the book of Revelation, he's like, well, I read the Bible literally. I read Revelation literally. And like you do. He said, yeah, so what about. And I mentioned Revelation, chapter nine when it talks about the locust, because his position was that those were Black Hawk helicopters. And I'm like, you're not reading it literally. You're interpreting locusts to mean something now, today. So you're not actually reading it literally. And if you try to impose that everything's going to be read literally, then you kind of run into some issues. You have to interpret it in the context at which it was written. I think that's what he was more getting at.

[Christian]

Even the Bible itself says you read the Book of Job, and most of the Book of Job were speeches by Job's friends, who then at the end of Job, God says, your friends. I'm paraphrasing. Your friends are idiots. They don't know what they're talking about.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Christian]

All those passages that are in the Bible, whereas God say those guys are. They don't know what they're talking about. So.

[Zach]

And if, if you just pull up, pull out the Book of Job, prime example, and you start reading some of their advice and you're like, oh, this sounds good. You start quoting the scripture.

[Christian]

You start quoting the scripture, man, that build.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah, great, great point. Well, I think, you know, we're kind of running. Running out of time. I wanted to go back to the kind of his, his main. Like the, the, the, the climax of his conversion, because he would walk into that, into the garden, which was Addison's Walk. And it. I love this, that he said it was like a circular walk. And now there's like a poem there about the songbird, which you'd mentioned a little bit ago. Christian. It was. I love. I connected the circular nature of the walk. Like, he's in, he's walking in this circle. And, and you. We've all felt this, right? Like, you're like, man, I'm just In my own head, like everybody's kind of had that experience in life and multiple times and seasons when you just feel like I'm just, I can't get outside myself. And that circular, that, that's the circular walk I'm in, I'm in the thing and I'm just walking in circles and I'm just, it's like, but there's got to be something out of here that I, that I'm, I'm moving towards or pointing to. Which again goes back to the poet, the poet's fingers pointing out, not in. And so that really was the climax for Lewis of coming to Christ, was this, this breaking out of that self centeredness. And where I think this ties back into that seventh grader Zach, eighth grade Zach, is. It's getting out of the corner. So worried about your own rejection, so worried about how you're going to perform, so worried about all of those things. The, the point is go enjoy the dance. Like, can you just quit thinking about the dance and watching the dance and observing the dance and contemplating how you're going to fit in the dance and just, just go dance. And what Christ is bringing us into is not just a contemplation about who God is or who even Christ is. It is an invitation to participate in the divine dance, to partake, according to the Apostle Peter, to partake of that divine nature. And that's where you actually start to taste the enjoyment. And you're not even really knowing what you're doing when you're doing it. You're just like, I'm enjoying this. That's transformational.

[Christian]

And that really is the key to what we're trying to do on our podcast, Zach, is we study the Scripture not just to contemplate it, but to joy in it and how it impacts our life. And we're about out of time. So I want to close with this because one of my favorite lines from the lecture was right at the end when he said that Lewis said, Christ is the hermeneutical key to studying and applying the Bible. And I think that's so true. We say that a lot on Unashamed. And he went to Luke 24. Zach, one of your favorite passages. And you remember he's having this. He's walking along with these two disciples. And you know, Jesus does his typical things. Hey, what's going on? Is there anything happening around here? You know, it's kind of like they're like, you haven't heard. And then it says in verse 27, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets. He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Now, these are two guys that he's just spent three years with, but now he's resurrected. They're not even sure who he is because he's done the shape shift thing and they don't recognize him. And then he goes back and goes through the whole thing and he tells them the story as they're walking along. And then they said this when they looked at each other after he vanishes, you know, after he ate a meal with them. Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? And so that really becomes the whole point, right? I mean, and I love it that Lewis, he was not a theologian, but obviously he was shaped by the Word. And he picked the one thing, poetry, to be able to do that. But that influenced and impacted him. But he said the right thing. He said the thing that we say every day on this podcast, Zach, that Christ has to be the hermeneutical key to everything.

[Zach]

That's key. I'll say this. I know we're closing, but. But think about what happens when you're dancing with the woman that you're in love with or you're dancing with the man that you're in love with. If you were to describe it, would you not say, my heart is burning. My heart's on fire. And so that. That hermit hermeneutic of Christ, when you're. When you realize that all the scriptures point to who he is and you. And then now you're in the dance, the only thing that can happen from that is that your heart burns like. Like these guys on the road to Emmaus. And that's. That's the life I want to live into. And I want my heart to be set ablaze for him. And I think that's probably what will transform, has transformed the world. And what will transform the world.

[Christian]

You're right. Knowledge by acquaintance.

[Al]

Knowledge by acquaintance.

[Christian]

Really good. We want you to take the course with us. We got a couple more lectures left, so if you're just kind of joining in now, jump in here. You're going to love it. It's free. Unashamed for hillsdale.com and we'll see you next time.

[Zach]

Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy, powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to unashamedforhillsdale.com and sign up. It's no cost to you. That's unashamedforhillsdale dot com and don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.