The famous essay of C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory", opens with a Mike Tyson knock-out punch that landed squarely on the jaw of my life and parenting.
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstitenence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.
The factory setting on my life is set to selfishness. As a Christian, I've sought to live unselfishly, and taught my children to treat each other unselfishly ("Eli, don't hog that ball...Grace don't be selfish about what you want to listen to..."). I needed this corrective. Denying myself pleasure is not the point. Seeking the good of the other person, which often involves denying yourself, is.
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