Confession is the most grown up thing you can do.

Here’s why: the big bad fault of the human race is blaming others. It started right at the very beginning:

“Adam. Did you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

“The woman you gave me. She made me do it.”

Wow! He blames Eve AND God who gave him Eve.

“Eve did you eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil?”

“The devil made me do it!”

OK. This is the basic, default setting. This is how we’re wired because we’re immature.

It makes sense. There is a logic to it. When you were in the womb and when you were a little baby you depended on Mommy and Daddy for everything. Everything from food and playtime and bath time and wiping of bottoms and noses.

Expectations are determined by first experiences, so if your first experience is total and utter dependency you come to expect that someone else will do everything for you, and if someone else is supposed to do everything for you, then when things go wrong it must, logically, be someone else’s fault.

This is why we blame others. The unhappiness, the problem is always somebody else’s fault.

But this is not true. It is the basic illusion. In fact, we are not dependent. God gave us responsibility for ourselves it is that little bit of omnipotence he shares with us called free will.

To grow up, therefore, is to realize that other people are not going to do everything for us and therefore they are not to blame.

We have to pull up our socks, put on our big boy pants and take responsibility for ourselves.

This is the pure genius of Christianity. As far as I know it is the only religion that says, “OK. The first step, the very first step is to get down on your knees, humble your heart and say, ‘Bless me Father for I have sinned.’ ”

Repentance is the first step because that is when we first say, “It isn’t anybody else’s fault. I can’t blame anyone else. I’m taking responsibility. I’m going to do something about the problem.”

This very first step is therefore the first step to growing up.

The reason our society is in such a state is because we’re a bunch of big babies who will not take this first step. That’s why we are so busy blaming other people for our problems, and what worries me is that this behavior always leads ultimately to violence.

We get so mad at the other people who we perceive to be the problem that we decide the only way to get rid of the problem is to get rid of the people who are causing the problem and that means first mockery, then exclusion, then persecution and finally killing, and that killing leads to more killing and endless cycle of revenge.

That’s why the first steps of growing up is taken on our knees.