Reincarnation as something that ought to be considered within the context of Christianity

 Another topic to get out of the way upfront has to do with reincarnation.

For most of my life the concept of reincarnation wasn't really even considered, as it was definitely not a part of the belief system I was raised in specifically, or really part of Christianity as I understood it more generally.

The story I had been told was that we lived as spirits in a pre-mortal state before being born here on Earth, that we were born once here in order to both receive a body as well as to make good choices, before ultimately then dying.  At that time, our spirits would go to a spiritual plane or world to await the resurrection, at which time we would obviously be a spirit and a body again, never to be separated.

And this might be how the story goes for some, even many, but I don't think for everybody anymore.  I believe now that there are some individuals (I think it may be many, as well) who have at least a couple go-arounds on Earth, with a few having potentially many more than just a couple.  It depends, I think, both on the role of the individual in question, as well as their own innate Being.  In this story, some are asked to play multiple parts and do so because of their belief in and loyalty to those who ask them, while others may also have the power or ability to do this if they wish, whether asked or no.  I am not sure how it all works, however.

That being said, the concept of reincarnation was one that I fought fairly intensely for some time.  I didn't like it.  It seemed to me to be the loneliest concept I had ever heard of.  I love my family, and close friends, and the thought that all of that went away - was completely forgotten - as a person died and was reborn with another family just came across to me as a horrible.  It made me feel cold or something.

Two things helped, however, in my coming around to the belief that reincarnation is a thing, at least for some.

First, I actually don't think it works like I originally feared.  As in, I don't think it is a random shuffling of people and families, and that we forever lose what had been gained and nurtured during a life.  I think there is a continuation, and that those we love continue to join us along the path - the nature of the relationships may change in some instances, obviously, but that there is a guiding hand and a method to the madness that manages how relationships and ties are re-established in these cycles.

Second, I've come to believe that we existed in and as part of families long before this Earth was created, and that while those we love here are in many cases extensions or continuations of those families in the Great Before or whatever we call it, still it is not complete.  To say it another way, the great fear that I had about reincarnation was actually already a reality that I was experiencing unknowingly with or without me or anyone else being born here one time or fifty.  The fact was that I did have family and close friends in a time long before, these relationship existed for a very long time, but they are not all here with me now and I have completely forgotten them.  Heaven, as I see it, will include the reuniting of these first family relationships - a remembering of what once was, and is now again, and will never now not be.  And not just a reuniting, but also it seems potentially an expansion and new connections within and across these families.  So, what once was now made even better, perhaps.

Again, I bring this up because in some of the thoughts I will capture here, reincarnation and individuals playing multiple roles and being known by many names will be taken as a given.  I sometimes like to make connections and make a few not-completely-uneducated guesses about a Being and the many parts they might have played, and that will no doubt come out in my writing.

Two such individuals were mentioned in my previous post - Joseph Smith and JRR Tolkien.

The real strange and wonderful thought exercises open up at the intersection of reincarnation and the belief that Tolkien's imagined world is based in reality.   In the merging of those beliefs, one starts to place people like Joseph and Tolkien - individuals we know existed in our 'real' world - as also having played previous roles and had lives in the these other stories that are held to be fiction, and in seeing that, it helps bridge these two worlds and merge them into a much bigger and better story.  That is why I think about it and try to make those connections.