mea culpa

"Our standard of value is the way things affect us. Each of us takes our place in the center of our own world. But I am not the center of the world, or the standard of reference between good and bad. I am not, but God is.

In other words, from the beginning, I put myself in God's place. This is my original sin. I was doing it before I could speak, as has everyone else. I am not 'guilty' on this account because I could not help it. But I am in a state, from birth, in which I shall bring disaster on myself and everyone else unless I escape it.

Education may make my self-centeredness less disastrous by widening my horizons. But this is like climbing a tower which widens the horizons of my vision while leaving me still the center of reference. The only way to deliver me from my self-centeredness is by winning my entire heart's devotion, the total allegiance of my will to God--and this can only be done by the Divine love of God disclosed by Christ in His life and death."

~From Christianity and Social Order by William Temple