“Lord Almighty, we say we want to serve you,
we say we want to help others less fortunate than ourselves,
we say we want justice.
But the truth is, we want power and status because we so desperately need to be loved. Free us from our self-fascination and the anxious activity it breeds,
so that we might be what we say we want to be—loved by you
and thus capable of unselfish service. Amen”
(Stanley Hauerwas, Prayers Plainly Spoken, 49).