[percy-l] "What's so great about this Percy guy, anyway?"

Patrick Lynch padraig at well.com
Thu Sep 1 00:24:38 EDT 2005


Pain and discomfort, it seems, without any what one might call  
"mindfulness" or perceptive thought can bring to fore that darker  
self. It's somewhat similar to what a friend told me about his being  
questioned on his Conscientious Objector status and was given the  
situation where a person was about to rape his sister and there was a  
gun between him and that person. The representative said, "Would you  
not shoot the rapist?" He answered, "Yes," but if he could, he would  
try to avoid the gun or even putting his sister in harm's way in the  
first place.

Perhaps the higher self, and I hope I can be forgiven a sidestep away  
from Percy here, is like the one advocated by Rene Girard. One must  
look at violence (and by association from within the highest self)  
and choose to have it stop. Rather than look for the scapegoat,  
become the scapegoat. choose to suffer. Sort of like Tom in the  
Second Coming who has to deal with the toothache and come out from  
his cave.

I must say, Karl and Dave, you bring up fascinating ideas.

Patrick
On Aug 31, 2005, at 8:35 PM, Karl M. Terrell wrote:

> There is something about these awful occurences that brings up a dark
> side of our authenic selves.  I'm not sure we can wholly control this.
> We can only hope, on balance, that the search will proceed toward a
> light.

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