E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist missionary of a previous generation, told of someone once asking "the head of a mental institution why they didn't have more guards in the institution--weren't they afraid of an uprising? 'No,' replied the other, 'there is no danger of an uprising for the insane never organize.' Why? Each is wrapped up in himself, cares little or nothing about others. If he began to care about others, that moment he would be on the road to health. It is self-centered preoccupation that is the disease."
Insanity has often been defined as "doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result." This is consistent with Brother Stanley's anecdote about "self-centered preoccupation." There is an element of that in all of us, for we are all tainted by the effects of the Fall. Prevenient grace is divine restraint against the chaos that would inevitably result from a fallen humanity left entirely to its own self-centered preoccupations.
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