JUMPING THE SHARK

Reincarnation, this topic can be a room clearer and one I have spent a great many hours wrestling. For many years I struggled in contemplation with the “inviolate” concept of once and done. My struggles centered on our eternal consciousness versus the finite nature of flesh. Why would our Father, who exists beyond the constraints of time, space and flesh, limit his children in this way? How could we possibly learn all the lessons required to learn spiritually in a mere 70, 80 or 90 years? In the Old Testament, life spans of hundreds of years are noted, but that was some time ago and even if we did live hundreds of years there are many lessons requiring a fresh clean perspective. How can one person, even if diligent from day one, learn the lessons of having lived a lifetime as a king and a beggar, of the courageous and the coward, to live as a criminal and then as a righteous man in the same life, and what of the reverse? Live a life devoted to self-indulgence and denial? To know the joy, and heartbreak of children and a life lived chaste? Handicapped from birth or born healthy, to learn all this and so much more, from the perspectives of male and female, in one lifetime? Any man who says he understands childbirth is a fool and any woman who stands in judgment of the bond between warriors is unwise. Today I know from bitter experience that until I walk a mile in someone’s shoes, I truly cannot know their lessons and to think otherwise, for me, is hubris. Eternity is a long time, what sense would it make to limit our schooling to a single life since we are children of the Infinite, of “Our Father, who art in Heaven….”