Wednesdays with Words: Self as the End and Centre

Karen Glass gets down to brass tacks in her chapter Choose You This Day, and the tacks fall right into place with what I considered about *revel* in February:

Charlotte Mason’s conception of willing, or choosing, requires an object outside of self.  No effort of choice is necessary to serve self–this we do naturally, and choices made to indulge our natural desires do not require an act of will. When we will ourselves to act for others or for God, or for the sake of an ideal, we are behaving like men rather than animals. “There are but two services open to men–that which has self as the end and centre, and that which has God (and by consequence, man) for its object.” (Ourselves, pg 172) Choosing to serve something other self is a fulfillment of Christ’s command to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We already love self, and need no conscious willing to pursue ease, leisure, profit, and pleasure for ourselves. If our education seeks to give us character, it will teach us to choose to work for others, and inspire us by ordering our affections so that we desire to do so. (Consider This, pg 77, underlines mine, italics hers) 

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