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Last year, I fell down the rabbit hole of the musical Hamilton. I’ve always been a fan of musicals, and the combination of music, character development, and Revolutionary history was irresistible.

One of the most memorable characters is Aaron Burr, who achieved fame primarily by fatally shooting Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Burr is the narrator of the musical and a complex character with mixed motivations. On my fourth or fifth time through the soundtrack, I came to a realization: Aaron Burr is grasping for what C. S. Lewis calls “The Inner Ring,” and this striving explains much of his destructive behavior.

The Inner Ring

Lewis, in his essay “The Inner Ring,” uses the term to describe that place where many of us long to be. We want to be in the know—one of the essential people. We want to be part of that tight circle that’s most important, wherever it may be: in a family, a circle of friends, at work, or at church. Lewis writes:

I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.

This is certainly true of Aaron Burr. Most of his time in the play is spent watching Hamilton and resenting his upward progression. Though Hamilton has no family connections and no natural reason to succeed, he doesn’t shy away from asking for advancement.

He just continues to climb, and this eventually leads to his position as George Washington’s right-hand man. Burr can’t understand how Hamilton’s lack of discretion leads to non-stop success and a seat at important tables.

Why is Hamilton always on the inside when Burr is left out in the cold?

The Room Where It Happens

Burr longs for “The Inner Ring,” but he calls it “The Room Where It Happens.” In a rowdy, brassy show-stopper, he expresses his desire to be in the room where “decisions are happening over dinner”—in this case between Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. But as usual, Burr has been excluded. This is the moment when Burr finally says explicitly what he wants: just to be on the inside.

Lewis describes Burr’s longing:

Poor man—it is not large, lighted rooms, or champagne, or even scandals about peers and Cabinet Ministers that he wants: it is the sacred little attic or studio, the heads bent together, the fog of tobacco smoke, and the delicious knowledge that we—we four or five all huddled beside this stove—are the people who know.

But, he goes on, it’s more sinister than that. It’s not just being included that we desire—it’s our delight that others have been excluded:

Your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence.

In Aaron Burr’s story, this struggle escalates until the end of the show finds him bitterly revisiting his constant exclusion in favor of Hamilton. Denied Hamilton’s endorsement for president, he had lost the election to Thomas Jefferson.

Burr writes Hamilton: “You’ve kept me from The Room Where it Happens—for the last time.”

The exchange closes with an agreement to duel: “Weehawken. Dawn. Guns drawn.”

Emptiness of the Quest

Poor Burr! If only he could have given up the quest to be on the inside. Lewis assures us of the emptiness of this quest:

Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humor or learning or wit or any of the things that can really be enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new associates have been staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.

The desire for the Inner Ring creeps into friendships easily, doesn’t it? We are fearful people, desiring acceptance and love. Social media show us tight circles of friends, inside jokes, and meet-ups we weren’t invited to, all providing fertile soil for jealousy. Instead of looking to the Lord for help with our own duties and challenges, we look around, wondering how our life would be different if we were in that circle . . . with those friends . . . living that life.

“That life” is a mirage, of course, and if we were to experience it, we would find it just as fraught with trouble as our own. The rainbow’s end will remain out of reach, as Lewis tells us. If he had been invited in to The Room Where It Happens, Burr would still never be satisfied. He would not have found the wholeness he sought. The problem was within himself, just as it is with us. Our hearts deceive us and tell us that other people are to blame. The truth is that our idolatry and wrong desires are the problem.

True Joy Is Outward

What is the antidote to this ongoing distress? Turning outward. God creates us for community not to serve ourselves, but to serve one another. “Through love serve one another,” Paul reminds us (Gal. 5:13). Or elsewhere, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3–4). What is a quest for the Inner Ring if not looking to our own interests?

What is a quest for the Inner Ring if not looking to our own interests?

As we turn our focus outward, looking to serve and enjoy the Lord and others, we may in time, quite by accident, find the reward of true friendship and fellowship. As Lewis puts it:

And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a byproduct, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

The joy brought by true fellowship in the Lord can never come from clamorous striving for the Inner Ring. For Aaron Burr and his desire to be in The Room Where It Happens, self is on the throne. And as long as we aspire to the same, we’re not in a place to love, serve, and eventually share true selfless community with others. As Lewis concludes, “The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it.”

Author’s note: I shared these thoughts in part during the closing session of Hutchmoot, which is the weekend conference of the Rabbit Room community. If you don’t know what Hutchmoot is, you can check out the website here. For many of the Story Warren crew, it is a blessed time to be inspired and energized to keep on creating.

How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about breakfast! But she had stopped for quite a different reason. A little way off at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dogfox, all on stools round a table. Edmund couldn’t quite see what they were eating, but it
smelled lovely and there seemed to be decorations of holly and he wasn’t at all sure that he didn’t see something like a plum pudding.

At the moment when the sledge stopped, the Fox, who was obviously the oldest person present, had just risen to its feet, holding a glass in its right paw as if it was going to say something. But when the whole party saw the sledge stopping and who was in it, all the gaiety went out of their faces. The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork half-way to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually in its mouth, and the baby squirrels squeaked with terror.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the Witch Queen. Nobody answered.

“Speak, vermin!” she said again. “Or do you want my dwarf to find you a tongue with his whip? What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self indulgence? Where did you get all these things?”

“Please, your Majesty,” said the Fox, “we were given them. And if I might make so bold as to drink your Majesty’s very good health – ”

“Who gave them to you?” said the Witch.

“F-F-F-Father Christmas,” stammered the Fox.

“What?” roared the Witch, springing from the sledge and taking a few strides nearer to the terrified animals. “He has not been here! He cannot have been here! How dare you – but no. Say you have been lying and you shall even now be forgiven.”

At that moment one of the young squirrels lost its head completely.

“He has – he has – he has!” it squeaked, beating its little spoon on the table. Edmund saw the Witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood appeared on her white cheek. Then she raised her wand. “Oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t,” shouted Edmund, but even while he was shouting she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had been there were only statues of creatures (one with its stone fork fixed forever half-way to its stone mouth) seated round a stone table on which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.

From the chapter “Aslan is Nearer”

I read a quote once about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the author stated that some feasts in Narnia are seen as “acts of war.” Eating and drinking are not normally viewed as a combative act, so the thought piqued my curiosity.

The animals’ Christmas feast (above) is an act of war to the White Witch because it tells the truth about her authority. The witch views it as an act of treason; she is threatened by the celebration. The thaw is underway, Father Christmas is in the wood, and the witch’s reign is drawing to a close.

The animals’ feast bellows out hope, joy, and the truth that Aslan is on the move. Who knew that some plum pudding and holly could be so offensive?

Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “Enemy-occupied territory–that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”

No doubt you have been at a feast that was an act of war. Perhaps you didn’t realize it at the time, but you have. Anytime you sit at a table with those who share your conviction that Jesus is returning, you declare war on the lies of this world — this mixed-up, passing-away, broken world. You reinstate the truth of creation, joy, and all things made new.

On the road west to Nashville this past Thursday, my husband and I sat in silence and listened to all of Andrew Peterson’s new album The Burning Edge of Dawn. There is a point on the record where the gloom grows heavy and thick, and the rain keeps falling. The darkness is palpable.

At times the world and its dark press in upon us relentlessly. We are tempted to give up hope and light and all that we hold dear. The forces of sadness and guilt heap condemnation and defeat upon us.

Then like a guttural cry from somewhere unknown, the next song rings out:

Set your face against the night

and raise your broken voice

Rejoice

This line of the song, taken from Philippians, landed on my ear as a war cry. What a strange thing for Paul to do in a dank prison, chained to a guard and waiting for deliverance or death.

What a strange thing for us to do week in and week out — on birthdays, on holidays, at homecomings, weddings, or church potlucks — as evil targets Christians by name in our world every week, nearly every hour.

Yet onward we go — together at feasts and communion tables, feasting and making a war cry.

We rejoice because we are advancing under the leadership of the One True King, who sets the world free from bondage to the enemy forces by His great campaign of sabotage. We raise our broken voices and repel the dark. We join with brothers and defy death in an act of community. We feast on fine food and wine. We conquer armies with a marching band…or a paintbrush…or a pencil…or a guitar.

I love the passage in the Old Testament where God overturns Israel’s enemies with trumpets and light:

So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled.

-Judges 7:19-22

At my house on Resurrection Sunday, we raise our glasses and say, “let us eat, drink, and be merry, for yesterday we were dead.”

Battle stations, everyone — to the feast! Raise a glass in warfare.