Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1264 | Why Intimacy with God & Their Wives Is So Hard for Christian Men

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian wrestle with why intimacy feels so difficult for American men—both with God and in marriage. Following along with C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy, they explore how knowledge alone can’t produce real closeness, and why desire and longing shape the way men actually live. The guys challenge the idea that faith is about mastering concepts instead of participating in a relationship. They point toward a hopeful vision of intimacy that isn’t forced or performed, but rediscovered through joy, presence, and learning to live inside God’s story rather than observing it from a distance. Today’s conversation is about Lesson 3-4 of C.S. Lewis on Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale professor Michael Ward. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about C.S. Lewis on Christianity: Encounter the faith & wisdom of C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis’s writings bring the great questions of the Christian faith to life. Through his imaginative and invigorating style, Lewis answers these questions in ways that are compelling to those outside Christianity and energizing to those within the Christian faith. In this free, seven-lecture course, Professor Michael Ward—a leading scholar of C.S. Lewis—will explore Lewis’s: argument for objective moral value in response to the rise of modern subjectivism; bittersweet path to conversion and the role of enjoyment in the Christian life; advice regarding the proper way to pray and read the Bible; teachings concerning the purpose of pain and how to confront suffering and loss; insights about the nature of heaven and hell. This course examines these fundamental topics not only through his classic works—including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man—but also through Lewis’s personal experiences with doubt, conversion, suffering, grief, and joy. Through this course, students will discover Lewis’s core lessons regarding the truth and goodness of the Christian faith and how to apply those lessons to one’s life.  Join us today in discovering C.S. Lewis’s enduring lessons about the meaning and practice of Christianity. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00 Why This C.S. Lewis Lecture Is Tough 03:02 When the Philosophy Gets Heavy 06:42 The Inklings & Writing Under Critique 11:06 Why Lewis’s Conversion Feels Underwhelming 15:26 Conversion Isn’t Always a Moment 20:08 Why Desire Drives Our Actions 25:26 The Beam of Light Explained 31:12 Joy as Longing, Not Satisfaction 36:58 From Holding the Garden to Living in It 42:26 Conversion as Intimacy, Not Performance 47:12 Final Reflections on Living the Story — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. This is our Friday episode, Unashamed with Hillsdale. We're taking these courses that Hillsdale offers for free. You guys can join us at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. We are in the CS Lewis course on CS Lewis on Christianity. I've thoroughly enjoyed this, but I was kind of wondering. how is it because we're now

this is episode this is the fourth lecture it got a little hairy if you're not a philosophically minded a person but Al how you guys you guys have been no Zach

so it wasn't as bad as when I was in college and I was in quantitative methods which was a statistics the next level statistics course it wasn't that bad because when

The guy was talking, he was like given the first lecture. It sounded like the Charlie Brown teacher. Or wamp, womp, wamp, wamp, wah. And all I got was if you're not serious about statistics, you don't need to be here. And so I got up and I walked out of that class and I walked over to a Matt Bizer. And I said, I'm dropping that course. He said, well, you can't get your business degree without this course. I said, then what else we got here?

So it wasn't that bad. But it was about halfway through the lecture, I mean, I was kept backing it. I'd stop it and I'd back it up and I would listen again. And I just, I wasn't getting it. I was like, Christian, were we together? Yeah, no, halfway through listening to it, I was like, I hoped me and Al, we're on the same page. But I know somewhere out there, Zach, it's just foaming at the mouth because he's adjoining

this. I said, two of our four are thinking, this is the best thing ever. And two of our four are thinking, what is he talking about? I will say this, and we'll get there at the end of this podcast, but it all came together at the end. It would have helped. I did not read this book, and it would have helped had I read it, I'm sure. Because the first one is on his book, Surprised by Joy,

which is his, that's his, really kind of a little bit like his testimony of how he came to faith in Christ. But, yeah, and I mean, the reason why we wanted to bring that up at the beginning of the podcast is because if you're sitting in this course, I mean, it is, yeah, it's a little, it's a little, it's a little heavy in terms of the content. But I think you guys, y'all both went through. We went through episode or lecture five. So the next two podcasts, we're going to be focusing on those two lectures,

lecture four and five. But it's one of those things that would encourage you. Like if you're in it, you're like, whoa, this is heavy. Like push through it. How you push through it, Christian, you pushed through it. It came out the other side.

And at the end of it, I mean, we were talking at the beginning of the podcast. I mean, your light bulbs are going off. So sometimes when you're into new content, if you're not used to learning in a certain way. But I mean, these are courses that you would take at their college. And so, I mean, these are, this isn't easy. But I mean, I think we kind of said that from the beginning. We're stepping into, you know, educating our audience.

We want to be educated along with you. And C.S. Lewis is obviously, he's a huge part of, you know, Western civilization. I don't know any preacher that doesn't quote C.S. S. Lewis at least three or four times a year. We quote him every Sunday at our church, but just about it. Can you imagine, though, being with the group, because we talked about this in the previous podcast, the inklings, which that name came out in this episode, these group of guys that would meet together consistently at Oxford, and they were all brilliant in their own right.

John, like, you kind of done a little bit more research on the nature of their relationship. but it's kind of interesting that that group and that dynamic yeah i got really into them for a while and started reading like some of the stuff the other other guys wrote that were in that group which the biggest ones were c s lewis and jr tulkin and their whole thing was getting together they would read passages from the books they were writing and they would critique them and so it was just like a roast session on the books they were writing at the local pub at the pub yeah and over a pint Over a pint. Yeah.

And that's like, that's where, especially J.O. Tolkien and the early, like, Nornia books, that's where, like, they were, the first guys who heard them was there at the inkling. And that's why I think why they were so good, too, because they were critiquing them

as they were writing them. Yeah. Yeah, because who knows what the versions of their work would have been without that. I mean, that was part of their process, not feted it, which is really interesting. And we kind of know, Zach, from when dad was writing his books, we kind of did it team style.

It was me and you and your dad. And we kind of had that back and forth through the process of writing it. I guess we were some sort of inklings. But it was really interesting because dad was kind of the core of what we were going. And it was his sort of way. But then all of us contributed and pull back and added in. And we came out with some. really good product, you know.

Well, we would process very openly. I mean, even how we started this podcast, I think it's appropriate. I mean, we're, you know, we're not drinking out of the coolant here. Like, we're telling you that sometimes these courses get difficult and you work through the content. But in the end, the final product is good. And so, you know, this first episode or I say episode, this first lecture is today, lecture four, the fourth lecture is about Lewis's memoir.

surprised by joy where he tells the story of his early life leading up to his conversion to Christianity and then one of his friends one of the one of the inklings a guy named uh john wayne uh dr ward pointed out not to john wayne it's more like yeah yeah see here john way don't think about the west but one of the guys and that was his attempt to be funny but he the typical brit he said it and he never like even cracked a smile or anything it was funny it was It was funny. I mean, I chuckled, but he was just like, boop. It was just like...

He was just like... He said... He's an excellent teacher, by the way. No, he's great. Totally. He said, and I believe that John Wayne is 180 degrees. Wrong. He did say that.

He pushed back... Because John Wayne had a criticism of this book and essentially said that it was lame and that it was a... Unconvincing. Unconvincing. Dot, dot, dot, dot, a failure. As lame and unconvincing as it could pop. Possibly be. I mean,

like, he didn't just think the knife, and he twisted. It's a hundred, and it's a hundred and it's a hundred and ninety-page book and there's only two pages

dedicated, really to his conversion. So in Wayne's defense, he, there is some credence there. No, I actually totally agreed with that assessment. I did too.

I heard it a lot from reading the book. Yeah. Listening to him say that, I was like, that's exactly what I thought too. Well, well, because Ward expanded on it of like,

when, when, when, when, uh, when, when, when,

went from atheism to being a theist, his conversion was more grand, and the way he explained it was more loud and those kind of things. He made that point. And then with his conversion to Christianity, it was just like a subtle, and he didn't really express. So I'm sure people were excited to know what that moment was actually like for him. And then they were, yeah, I can imagine that being underwhelmed with like all the stuff you've ever written. The one thing, Dr. Wood said that made me feel better. was that he said that he had to read the book four times to get what he got out, to get where he got to.

And I thought, well, that makes me feel better because. Because you listen to the lecture four times. Exactly. I can't listen to the lecture. And I'm thinking, why? I feel like a goose in a fog. You know, I think the problem is, though, when you're, you know, this is like part of learning. I mean, if like you try to pick up, for example, Beowulf and you're just going to read Beowulf,

like if you're not incubated in that content and that, that type of writing, it's going to, like, literally, it is a foreign language. Yeah. But, you know, if you force yourself, and it is hard, but you push yourself into the content and into reading that and the simmering in it, eventually, like, your brain, something happens in your brain and you start to kind of understand it. And it's the craziest phenomenon, but I think that's true of all things. And so that's why I've always, like, yeah, she'll be keeping things simple, yes, but I think

that at the same time we should also fire off these other parts of our brain and our neurons that can draw us into a deeper understanding of who God is. I thought that this whole two, the two lectures we're going to talk about over the next two weeks for me were, it really is the journey that I've been on for a while. And the big difference is is contemplation. He mentions this in the course. contemplation versus the enjoyment. And these are two really real ways that we access reality and that we acquire knowledge.

And how do you know what you know? Well, one way you know what you know is you observe, you know, you contemplate, you look at it and you contemplate what it is. And then there's another way of acquiring knowledge, which is more of a relational knowledge that says you enjoy it. And those are two equally, I'll say not equal, those are two very real ways that we know the world around us. And what Lewis is pointing to in this in this book, surprised by Joy and his story, and maybe his whole apologetic, is that one of those is more primary than the other. And the one that is more primary is actually that at the core of your being, you are a being who desires. And I've actually found that to be true in my own life. You know, that's more foundational

to how I actually live my life than what I think about are competent, and to the point where I can actually contemplate something and I can miss, I can actually miss the whole thing and it never really changed what I desire. And what I actually do in my real life is what I want to do. That's what I desire. It's not what I think about or contemplate. It's what do I want.

And so I think he's actually getting at really the core of what it means to be human. You know what I mean? That makes sense? It does. We want you to sign up and take this course with us. It's free. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you go to get that.

Yeah, I agree, Zach. And I think one of the things that, because, you know, Smith, who was my mentor, who was a smart guy, but at the same time it was very powerful with the gospel and just, you know, a straightforward type guy too. But he told me when I was very young, he said, I'll never be afraid to put things out for people that they have to reach up for, you know, meaning in your teaching. You know, don't just, he said, you know, we want to be always back to the gospel in Jesus, but at the same time, we want people to have to reach and stretch because that's how you grow. And so that's always stuck in my mind that it's always healthy to look at life through someone else's prism, and you learn things from that.

And so I do think that the uniqueness of people's testimony to how they come to see Christ, how they come to live for Christ, is very much seen in these two lectures. in NCS Lewis's life. This man looked at life completely different than me, but I've learned a lot from listening to his pontifications and who he is. So I think that's good for all of us, you know, to try to kind of walk in someone else's shoes.

And then did we grow? I mean, we see things that we didn't see before. Yeah. Yeah, the core of what he's getting at here, I think, and John Lickett on this in the last podcast, of some of the probably pushback against Lewis, And I can understand even more of what you were talking about in the last podcast, John Luke, after going through these two lectures, thinking about why people might push back against Lewis's presentation of the gospel here, or at least presentation of his own story. When you think about this podcast, for example, I will tell you, I read a lot of the comments over the years.

And we've been doing this for how many years now, Al? We're in our seventh year now. seventh year, I don't know how many, we've done a ton of podcast. And one of the biggest complaints that we've gotten, like, just like people pushing back against what we're saying. And we got, you know, we get a ton of ton of, ton of it. I mean, just, it's the nature of the business, right? So some of it, you kind of just got to have thick scan. Got to be inkling.

Got to have the skin. Jay says don't read the comments. I do read the comments. Chase is that he wants to detach himself from any criticism. I can't imagine. Jay's being someone who detaches himself. That seems so out of character for just the way the man lived. But you know, one of the biggest complaints, or not complaints, but maybe rebuttals that we've gotten is when Phil would say, I converted him.

He would use that word converted. And what Phil always met, and Jason's used it a few times. We've always used it. Like, yeah, I'll tell you, we had a couple guys come now. We converted them. And they're always like, you didn't convert anybody. Like, Christ converts, and they have a whole thing about, conversion. But even the word conversion is kind of like a, it's a weird phrase. And it, I think people

have an aversion to it because what they're thinking, when you hear that word conversion, maybe you're thinking about like the crusades or like the conquistadors that are converting, you know, the indigenous population and they're forcing. Or like Constantine and his whole army, you know, like just almost like you're forcing it on. Yeah, because they're like, no, you're actually making disciples and the conversion just I think where it gets lost in translation is when you, when I would hear the word

conversion growing up, what I heard was that was synonymous with we baptized him or baptized her. And it was a moment. Yeah. Right? And then we even had the big debate inside the churches of Christ. Like, when is the moment of salvation? Like, everything was about

a moment, like this one moment. And I think the reason why Lewis, the way He portrays, one of the reasons why he portrays, according to Dr. Ward, too, he portrays his own conversion, particularly to Christ. And really, I mean, it was two pages. It was like not, it wasn't what you thought it would be. It wasn't this big, drawn out emotional thing is because it is, it's kind of hard to identify really what that is. You said in the last podcast, John, Luke, about when I was talking about I've never seen anyone come to Christ to apologetics,

but then you kind of shared your own story which convicted me and it's like sometimes it's a lot more of an incubation process and it's hard to sometimes just to nail what we want that moment and for Lewis it really was a process of becoming

and I think that's why maybe it might fall flat if you're looking for like the I was dark and then boom the lights went on and everything was made sense all the sudden I don't think that that really wasn't Lewis's story you know what I mean well I think part of

that, Zach, was the, when you talk about conversion, when you go back and look at the book of Acts, which is when we see the first conversions to Christianity out of Judaism, you know, because all those people, initial people there in Jerusalem were Jewish. And so this is the first time this has ever happened. And so we watched that unfold. And so now, 2,000 years later, sometimes we kind of look back on that and say, well, yeah, that's exactly the way it has to be with everybody now, but that was 2,000 years. The context is quite different than it is now. Once we've had Christianity around for 2,000 years and different ways for people to

incubate the thought process. So you're right, Zach, we tend to look at it and say, well, it has to be this way. That was our problem, I think, in the CLC earlier. We were saying, well, it's got to be the example of this right here. And so everybody has to be the same. And that's not true at all. And you have to factor it in. And I think we'll get into this in the next point.

podcast. But even when you look at the Bible, you have to look at context, genre, the books, all of it. It's different. And so I think that plays into this as well. No, I was going to say that to you about, well, just to point on conversion, because I was thinking about this too and how it was kind of a slow process for him. And he doesn't really hit that, like, big moment. And I knew this guy, he was a youth pastor. And I think he's, maybe as a preacher now. Really smart guy, but really, real covenant theology guy. like tulip, all predestination, all of it, super into it. And his whole thing was every conversion was that huge light bulb moment.

And he had that. Like he, like when he told his testimony, it was, I never, you know, I didn't want God. I wasn't interested at all. And then I think he had like the, he was sick or something. And he like thought he was going to die. And he like felt like God spoke to him. he had this huge like moment and then from then on he was like all on fire for god and he believed that that is how it should be for everyone and if you don't have that moment like you haven't been

converted converted yeah and i was like i just don't think that that is everybody's experience like you can get take you know you can go from the bible but just also from just talking to people and how they've come to christ and sometimes it is like that Yeah. But most, I think probably most of the time, it's more of a long, long process of either growing up in the church, thinking about it, doubting, coming back, doubting, you know, up and doubt, you know, it's just like whole process. And so I thought that was a really good point that C.S. Lewis was making is that it doesn't

have to be like this huge lightbul moment, but it's just like a steady building of your relationship with God and with Christ. And plus, we've been talking this whole time about how the four of us, how we viewed life so differently. And John Luke and Zach tend to be more philosophical in your view. Well, if that's true in just the four of us, multiply that out to all of humanity in terms of how people view things. I mean, of course it's going to be different. And I don't know about y'all, but I mean, if I were an atheist and I had then converted to being a theist and then later to Christianity, which was the process, process he went through, probably, I mean, in my mind, going from atheism to theism was a huge leap.

That's probably bigger than the other one because. Yeah, Jesus. Because to say there's nothing to it and there's no God, and all of a sudden you think, well, there is a being, and then say, okay, well, now I'm willing to embrace what that being says about himself. Once the being, usually for most of us, that comes together, right? I mean, like, we're converted to God, the creator of the cosmos and to his plan at the same time. Most of us experienced it that way now, but he didn't. And, I mean, I could see. So I wasn't, when I read it or heard of the lecture, I thought it was, well, I could see where that would be pretty magnanimous.

Yeah. You know, that step. That was a big step. Well, this is what Lewis said about his conversion. He said that when he finally came into a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, there was, quote unquote, nothing of him left over or outside the act. The whole man had moved. He had, as it were, stepped inside the beam of Christian knowledge, which sounds great,

but to me it's kind of confusing. Zach, can you, nothing of him left over or outside the act. And then I was confused on the whole beam of light and how that with the enjoyment. Tell that story, Zach, about the, That was kind of, it was called the toolship, meditation in a tool shed. It was an article, I think he wrote, wasn't it? Yeah, he was looking at the beam of light, and there was like a difference between contemplated. That's what I started off with, like the big shift is the difference between contemplation of something and the enjoyment of something.

And he plays this out throughout these two lectures, lecture four and five, it really comes together, really, I think, in five. when he ends up on the road to Amas, which we've talked about on our podcast a lot. Because Luke 24 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. And he's drawn the distinction between the Word of God and then the God of the Word. And so I've done this a lot throughout the years. I'll take a phrase like, too many of us have put our faith in the gospel of Christ instead of the Christ of the gospel. And so what we would do is take the formula, the death burial and the resurrection of Jesus. And that becomes a formula that you, I'm into the formula.

But are you into the man? And so when on there's a moment in John 5 when Jesus says, you study the scriptures diligently. And by them you think you're saved, yet you've missed me, the one that they point to. So the point is that you can actually look at something like that beam of light. that could be the word of God, like the scripture maybe. And then you focus on the beam, but you're not actually living in the story of the beam. And so when Jesus meets those disciples on the road to Emmaus, what he does is he takes out the Bible and he shows them from the scriptures why Christ had to die, be buried, and race in the dead.

In other words, these were all pointing to me. And so it has to move from knowledge about God to more of an intimate knowledge of God and who he is relationally, which is why in John 17.3, the way that Jesus defines eternal life is not, he defines it as an intimate knowledge of knowing the ones your God. So it becomes more about union than it does about spectating of what it is. Does that make sense? It does. We want you to take this course with us. It's free, unashamed for Hillsdale.com. So he, so the beam part of this, just to try to break it down a little bit if you're looking, listening or watching, is he looked into this shed, it's dark in there, and there's a beam of light, the sun is shining. So when he first

sees, and the beam is like alongside him, he can see somewhat in there, and what's in there, because the beam's not directly in his eyes. So that's the one he said alongside the beam or along the beam. That's enjoyment. Then, in other words, how you see things are different. When the beam, he steps forward, the beam is directly in his eyes. Then he says he can't see anything but the beam. So then he's into contemplation because he can't see anything. So he's having to just imagine. It's right in his face. Right. It's right in his face. It's like it terminates on him. It's like what it is is that terminates on itself. Or if you, if you, if you, if it's enjoyment, it's, I mentioned this quote. I don't know if it may come from the same story. I believe in the sun, not because I can see it,

but because by it, I can see everything else. Yeah. So it's, it's, that it illuminates the world. There's a, um, just real quick, there's a, there's a, I think one of the issues that we have in Western thought is we typically in the church, especially, but even in society as a whole, when we think about what it means to be human, we typically think about that we're primarily thinking and believing being. So if we can get the right set of beliefs, right, we can get all of our right belief systems right, then we'll be right. but there's been quite a few authors, including Augustine, who have pushed back on this and have said,

no, no, to be human at your core, it actually, it's not, we are thinking beings and we are beings that believe, but primarily what we are at our core is we are beings who desire. We are, another word for desire is love. Another word for that is affections. Another word for that is longings. Another word for that is worship. these are all synonymous words when we talk about what it means to be human. That's what you primarily are. And the reason why you know this to be true, because do you know what one of the biggest, probably maybe the most pressing crisis in the American church among young men? What would you say it is?

What's the biggest crisis for young men in the church? What biggest struggle? Photography? Yeah, porn. And do you think that men in the church know that pornography, is wrong. Yeah. Do they have the right belief system about pornography? Yep. Do they believe that it will ruin their marriage? Yep. Do they believe it will ruin their sex life? Sex life? Yes. Do they believe that it makes them miserable? Yeah. They have all the right belief systems about it. All of their

thinking about porn is right. It's right. They hold all that to be true. And then the question is, well, why do they still do it? Why do we still struggle? Why? Because we want to. So the reason why someone looks at pornography is not a knowledge problem. It's they do what they want. So the issue then becomes, here, they think it's going to be a joyful. There's going to be enjoyment. Somehow it's going to satisfy some longing. And I think what Lewis is hitting at here in his whole conversion story is that what moved him to Christ was not right thinking. It was that his joy, what he found joy in was now aligned with who the person, or the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, persons of God. Who are they? Who is the father, son, and Holy Spirit? That dance, I think there was a term

he used, periclesia, the dance that God's invited us into. That's the big story that I think is unfolding. I like that. I like that porn analogy as well, because I've always said, Zach, that I thought the biggest attraction to pornography should be that you realize that it's not real. I mean, there are real people there, of course, and they're engaged, they're having sex, but it's not real for you. It's like once all of us have a covenant and a marriage and a relationship, that's real. I mean, to have intimacy with your wife, that's real. But that's fake. And so somehow to think you're going to get the ultimate enjoyment out of it, it's always going to leave you wanting, which of course, Zach is why they dive deeper in. But the results become the same.

And it just is the cycle, you know. And he mentions that a lot about the idea of cycles, too. And that's going to come up in the next lecture. But I loved it. It began. It began. to really solidify. We hadn't got to the best part of it about the whole garden thing, but is about the Holy Spirit's role in this idea of the beam. And so that was something that re-spoke to me. In other words, he said, you receive the Holy Spirit and then dwelling of the Spirit. And that's this idea of looking alongside because you can't see the Spirit. You know, you can't see him physically, but you know he's there. And you can see the results of it. And he said, you know, when you get in tune with the divine, then you start to see the fruit of it, and then it's even better than you could have ever imagined.

So I thought that was good. I think the point he's making here is that to enjoy the beam, you have to physically step in front of it. And for him, I think that was him stepping into the beam, starting to enjoy it, was actually praying and reading the ball. Bible and going to church and forgiving, you know, and trying to love. And I think that comes out in a lot of its other books. And it talks a little bit more about this in the next lecture. But that idea of going from just like thinking about Christ to actually being in Christ is that physical, like, not that he's saying like, it's that you always desire it, but you are attempting to live out the things that Christ wants you to. Attempting.

to talk to him, attempting to read your Bible, and attempting by meaning you're doing it every day whether you like it or not. Yeah, I thought one of the things that Dr. that Ward said was cool, he was talking about Lewis. I can't remember where he mentioned this. I might have been in the next lecture, but I think it was this one, but he talks about how Lewis often talked about like the shyness that he had to really tell the story of his conversion. I think just because of how, I think maybe reverent and how wholly that moment was for him, which is why he didn't really expound on it too too much. I took that as humility.

I mean, he seemed like a very humble person about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that was cool. He made that point that he talked about Lewis said that he often felt like a sort of, like a sense of shyness to really kind of expand on what actually happened to him in that moment. Yeah.

And by the way, if you guys want to join with us, you can sign up, take this course for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. We're in the CS Lewis course. But yeah, that's a good point. He, you know, he mentioned a poet, the, the job of the poet is to basically point people away from themselves. And so that was a cool point. Yeah, the finger.

Yeah, it's like he's pointing. And the more that you focus on the poet, you kind of miss the poetry, right? So he's pointing you away from himself, which is the point of what Lewis is doing in minimize, not minimizing a story. I don't think he minimizes it at all. I think what he does is he puts the story in a way that draws the reader into something deeper. or so when he uses the I love the one of my favorite parts about the whole lecture I think it was in lecture

four when he talks about his brother who brought in the toy remember that the toy garden and when he was a kid and they were playing with this like tour it was some kind of toy micro garden for kids and he's looking at it and Lewis

was basically like this was like imprinted into my memory of what like what a garden is or what paradise is well and the reason why is that the word he used, which was the word of the book, was he said it's the first time that he can remember feeling pure joy. Remember, that was the word joy.

That's right. He said, when he brought that in, and I looked at that, and it's interesting to me because I thought about the time he's talking about, we're talking about the early, you know, 20th century. And, you know, our kids now have all these things we buy, but they love to recreate something into a smaller version, a little kitchen, a little whatever,

a little, you know, they'd like to put it all in these little places. And in their day, you know, you didn't have any of that stuff. So the brother literally builds this beautiful garden, you know, on this, on this platform, and then brings it in. And he said that's the first time he'd ever felt joy. And so that sort of took him back to that idea of that was joy in a garden. So go ahead. Yeah, I thought that's just, Corey, said, yeah, he said the sensation left him with the desire,

but he was uncertain what he desired. Yeah. that's that's that's that's that's that's key to the whole thing right there because he says that um enjoyment is the most uh fundamental way of knowing i mean you guys sit in that for a minute but enjoyment is the most fundamental way of knowing which is what that's another way of saying what i said earlier that the most foundational thing to our humanity is that we are beings who desire um augustine said that our hearts were made for you and you alone uh our hearts are restless until they rest in you because they're made for you and you alone.

And so there's an author that I read a book years ago that had an analogy of a beach ball. And he's like, this is like what humanity is like. It's like the beach ball. And if you push the beach ball under the water, then it's like you've got to hold it down there. And it's like violently, you know, trying to get up above the water. And you're trying to hold it underwater and depend on how much air in it, is in it, how much pressure you're putting on it. But as soon as you let that beach ball go, what happens to it? It just violently emerges and it pops out of the top of the water.

And then if you sit there long enough and you watch it, what does the beach ball do? It rest. It'll just rest on the water. And so why is it resting? Well, because that's what beach balls do, right? There's air in it. This is just nature. This is just how it operates.

And so when Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in you, what he was getting at is that like all of our strife, all of our turmoil, all of our anxiety, all of our depression, all that is, is us fighting against what our true nature is. And the only way that you're going to find real peace and real joy, real satisfaction, real enjoyment is if you rest in God, because that is what you were made to do, just like that beach ball. You don't have to work towards this. And so Lewis is pointing towards that, but it's a longing, which we,

talk about on the podcast all the time that is it's not fulfilled yet because the kingdom hasn't been fully consummated. I don't fully even understand what that longing is. I just know that there is a longing inside of me that nothing in this world can satisfy it. And Lewis would say, well, you might want to consider you or made for another world. And so then we hope for the consummation of the kingdom. So it is that the way he expresses the word joy is an eternal longing that that you can't quite understand what it even is. And it's even in that that makes it all the more desirable, if that makes sense. Zach, in that with the phrase we've been hitting in our regular Unashamed podcast in First John to make my joy complete.

You know, Jesus said that several times. And John says it again in First John. To your point that you just made, that's the only place we can find that. And so I've only missed one question on the quizzes, which is unbelievable, as much as I've struggle mentally to stay here. But the question I missed was, was this one about joy when I watched this lecture. And here was the answer that I missed. Joy, at least in this life, is an unsatisfied desire that is itself more desirable than

any other satisfaction, which is, I mean, I mean, the reason I missed is because when I read that, I thought, well, that can't be right, because, you know, you can't be satisfied. But he's right. In other words, it can't be without this connection to the divine. And even when you see it, you don't want to look right at it. You look alongside it, you know, because it's bigger than we are. So back to your illustration about the garden, because you've got to bring it to consummation. So he's got the first joy he ever felt in this little garden.

And then his two pages of conversion, he goes to the Whipsdale Zoo. and basically he just says, you know, I was driving to the zoo. When I got there, I decided, you know, I'm a Christian. Yeah, yeah. I mean, want, want, one. Exactly. Ours John Wayne would say, lame. Lame.

Well, it took Dr. Ward the four times to read it because he talked about the quote was wallaby wood with the birds singing overhead and the blue bill is underfoot and the wallabies hopping all around, all around one, which he almost describes as, um, as, as Eden coming again. Yeah. But he made that connection to when he talked about the Holy Spirit

being above, beneath, and within. So it took him, I'm saying, it took them four times to realize the connection to that, which is what he thought

what's the most beautiful point. But I think my favorite part of the lecture was the imagery of, because he talked about with the toy garden, with his brother, and that was the first joy he felt.

But he talked about the, he talked about the idea of the joy he felt when he was holding the garden. And then after his conversion, conversion when Eden became real to him, realizing that he is now in the garden. So I thought that was so cool. Of going from, I'm holding the garden to now I'm being held by the garden.

And just that imagery of life in Christ opposed to outside of Christ. That was the payoff for me. That was the payoff. That was the payoff. That was what made it worth it. This was worth me rewatching four times because that really is us. And Zach, how many times have we talked about this on Unashamed? Oh, my gosh.

It is a whole purposing of Christ. was to reestablish the garden and the relationship. And so the fact that C.S. Lewis came to Christ that way in a garden, makes perfect sense. That's cool. I mean, it just, it really is the greater picture of the entire body. He just did it so subtly that you would have to read it for it times. Our entire podcast, so if you listen to this podcast, that's why I know, like, push through the lectures. I know they may be difficult for some of us, but like push through, because we've already been talking about this return.

to Eden, this Edenic vision that Christ, this is a return to the garden, but a fully consummated garden. And so, and the way Lewis describes his conversion experience is, it is connecting enjoyment to Eden. And Eden was that original temple. So what he's actually saying is, is that he began to be able to live in the reality that he is a temple, the spirit above within, around me. The God, you know, this, the real. that this is where this whole thing leads into the end. I think this beautiful. In this section, the thing that really impacted me was the way

that he described it as CSLEAS felt like it was too intimate a thing to share. And I thought that was like such a beautiful thing calling that moment of conversion intimate that it was he, CSLUZLU's almost felt like

it was such a personal thing with him and between him and Jesus. He almost couldn't like didn't want to share it because of how sacred that moment was. And that kind of reminded me I think that I've thought this

for years, that I think especially American men, the reason we miss Christ so often in the whole point is that is because we are the bride, but to think about your conversion to Christ

is like intimate. And I think is a very like feminine way to think about it. But that's exactly what is because we're the bride. Christ is the husband. Christ is the man of the house and we are coming to him as a bride. And that's a hard thing for us to like switch our thinking too. But I think once we do, we understand the holiness of our relationship with Christ and of this moment of coming to him. It would be the same reason, Luke, that we don't talk about intimate things with our wives in public. We don't, we never talk about that because it would be inappropriate to do. I mean,

that's something we shared just with that one. person and we would never do that. And so to that point, you're exactly right. It makes sense that he would see this as such a sacred moment. And it really is a, it's kind of to me that razor's edge of trying to, when you're telling your conversion or telling that point in time. And some people do have a moment. I certainly had a moment. And I tell the story. And it is. It's a powerful moment. It impacts other people. But at the same time, it's a very intimate moment for me even to think back on what I was thinking at that time. And so when I share that, it's strictly so that hopefully someone in an audience or someone that's listening, if I'm doing

this on a video, will say, oh, man, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's where I'm at right now. And I need to do something about it. So, but to share that and to put that out there is a, is a, it's a very humbling and sometimes even frightening moment to do that. You know, and you don't want to, how much is too much, you know, because how deep do you go into that as to how bad you really were, you know? So it's a razor's edge, I think. It's kind of like the, as you were saying, I was kind of thinking about the movie Jaws from back in the 70s, you know, and they got, you got the experts that they're like the, they're the experts in sharkology, whatever that is, right?

And they dismiss the threat. I think that is the actual scientific terror of sharkology. Is it? sharkology is it no the sharkologist i'm gonna google it the phd sharkologist they're like ah dismissing the whole threat and then it's the local fishermen sharkology refers to the study science and fascination with sharks good job same i mean guys you can't make this up sharkology sharkology loved it to love that i still don't believe that's real that's real sharkology's sharkology's real man that's a real thing they got a shark week it was sharkology and uh what did you say

Edenic, I thought those were two. Edenic is a real turn. I've never heard of that either. I love that. That was cool. Yeah, the Edenic vision or the Edenic promise. I love that. I haven't heard that. Well, I mean, the point is the point, yeah. The point is, like, the sharkologist doesn't really understand what's happening.

Well, who actually is the expert? What's the guy with the lived experience? It's the guy boots on the ground. It's the local fisherman who figures the whole thing out and is kind of the hero of the story. And so I think it's kind of the same way when Lewis is the way he's presenting this, what does he call it? I wrote it down here. It's called, he calls it knowledge by acquaintance.

Yeah. And then knowledge about. Yeah. And so the knowledge about, that's the shark colleges. They know a lot about sharks, but they're not in the water. I mean, the guy who, even like Phil, I got thinking about Phil one time I was out there on his land with him. And I'm thinking about how, like, most guys that I know that build, like, you know, duck holes like he does.

They're going to bring in like expert surveyors to build their dams and to build their levees and they'll have laser sites and all that. And Phil literally looks at the waterline on the tree. So yeah, I'm going to build that thing right up there in the water. Just like, it's just like instant. It's like wisdom of just like being out there in the woods every day. He looks at it. He eyeballs it.

He builds his levees and it holds water. And he figures to that, you know what I mean? Why is he smarter about duck habitat than a biologist from, from the greatest school in the world that teaches duck habitat. Bill was an expert because he was living in it. It was knowledge by acquaintance, not knowledge about duck hunting. He was in it. And in the same way, what crisis, this is what we're being called into. We're not being called just to know about God. We're actually, the invitation is to know God, and it's participatory. That's the big distinguishing probably word that he brought it up. I

think he called it participatory. He pronounced it differently, but it's participatory. Like, you're invited into participate into the inner life of God. You are invited into the dance. It's funny, you talked about that with Dad. So anytime you do, you have a wetlands, you have to, the government has to sign off on what you're doing because it's, you know, considered a federal deal. And so the Corps of Engineers come over and Dad takes them, you know, to show him what all he's gonna do and this, that, and the other, because you have to get a permit,

I'm sure you have to pay some money. But after a session with dad, they were like, okay, you're good here. Like, we're never coming back because, like, they had never, you could tell, they're used to people, like you say, they're trying to do the wrong thing and do things, and they're like, this guy, where?

But I thought you portrayed that so beautifully in the movie, Zach, with the blind, in that early scene when dad's just out there as a kid in the woods. And there was just something unique. in him that connected to nature in a way that made him different. And it really did. It was the pathway of his whole life.

It's what he loved to do. And so I thought you were going to say about the shark thing. You went a totally different thing that I thought you were going because when I watched Jaws, which was the first big blockbuster, I was like 10 years old, 11, and we had to sneak in because it was ready to R, you know, to watch the movie. And I was so scared. But I thought you were going to say because the way they filmed. that movie, you know, you went through 80% of the movie before you ever saw the shark,

which was brilliant because it made it scarier. When you actually saw it, it was like a big fake shark. It wasn't even that impressive. But, man, the attention of not quite seeing what the danger was, but knowing it was there. And I thought you were going to say, that was this kind of this idea that he describes with enjoyment and the Holy Spirit who lives in us. There's so much depth there and not necessarily having to say. see it, but seeing the fruit and the result of it.

And so that's what I took from the Giles analogy, but I like what you said to is that. One thing I thought was super interesting about this story is that Dr. Ward said that he changed the story of when it happened. So this in real life happened in like the winter when Lewis goes to the zoo. Yeah. But he changes it to the springtime when he tells the story to give the sense when, specifically when the blue bells are underfoot. Yeah.

and the wallabies are out specifically to change the give it like a poetic spin yeah and it really does like if he had told the story he goes to the zoo and there's snow underfoot and it's windy and cold that does change the way you think about the conversion but what lewis was trying to say and write it in this poetic way was that it was such a like peaceful idyllic moment that whenever i like came to christ and that's the point he was trying to get across, not what actually happened, because he didn't want you to misunderstand his internal feelings. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I thought the finger point was a great way to kind of illustrate it.

It was, yeah, the longer you point your finger, the more prone you are to look at what you're pointing at, not the person pointing. So I thought that was helpful in the sense of that's kind of why he shared it, the way he shared it. Yeah, this, I wanted to say this too. I kind of said this in the last episode, but I thought about it yesterday,

and what I said, when you read Lewis and you go back and read these books, and if you're totally new to this, the thing I was trying to say in the last episode is that the way he writes is with this poetic spin, and he's really focusing on these internal questions, not facts. And so when you read it, if you read it thinking, this man is a teacher trying to relate to me facts about God, you're going to miss the point. Yeah. Like just straight up. And that is a difficult way, because that's not how we normally read any book,

but specifically like a spiritual book that we're trying to learn from. That's not the way we read it. We typically read it like, oh, he's, what theological point is he trying to tell me here? But that wasn't his goal at all. His goal was really just, here's these things I'm talking with, I'm struggling with, here's my experience. To provoke something. To provoke something inside of you that you now think about. And in your life.

Yeah, right. And that's going to, we're talking about that next week is the parables as well. And it's interesting, it's a perfect segue because we're out of time, John Luke, that the one thing, the only book of the Bible that he actually wrote about was songs. Yeah. Which is interesting because when you said that, I was thinking about that's kind of the way the psalmist did. And not just David, ASAP, all of them is that same idea. Sometimes when you read them, they're just like, it's so different from anything as you read in the Bible. So it is interesting, and that's the one thing that he takes on.

So we're going to talk about that next week in the prayer and Bible scripture part of this. And so we want you to take this with us. Look, Luke makes a great point. Because I haven't read many of Lewis's works. and so now I can't wait to dive into them, but I'm going to understand them so much better after having done this course. So we want you to take this course with us.

It's free, Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Thank you for coming along the ride with us. Hang in there. It's some really good stuff, and we'll hit it again next week. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you.

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