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Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, United States

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Reincarnation

Christians do not believe in reincarnation
whereby the Hindus keep coming back
in new bodies with the same soul
or some sort of life essence therein.

The backbone of Christian belief,
is that the person of Jesus Christ is an
incarnation of the Almighty God who dies
and is resurrected, i.e. comes to life again.

N.T. Wright would have us believe that
our notions of a heaven or celestial sphere
are completely erroneous, that in fact
we will all come to bodily life again.

Leaving that theological conundrum aside,
our life experiences sometimes bring up
the feeling that we have received events
of another's life in our subconscious.

For reasons entirely unknown, the demise
of a confederate general at Gettysburg has
affixed my memory as something I can
visualize and describe in detail.

I have recited my ballad of Lewis Armistead
to many who were willing to listen and
perhaps to some who wish they hadn't,
but his saga still lives on with me.

My earthly companion believes rather more
strongly than I in reincarnation, whereas I
always say that I hope it's not true because I
certainly don't want to repeat high school.

We do share the certainty that two young
college students on an art tour to Rome many
years hence will feel that they have fulfilled
a return of their forebears to Trevi fountain.

Then there was a dream of mine last night
wherein a group of teachers piled into cars
to visit a ramshackle building in a rundown
section of some unknown city.

On the way, I was immediately attracted to
an adjacent young woman I did not know.
She spoke very little but seemed to sense
something between the two of us.

On the way back, we were put in separate cars,
but she smiled as if to say, "We'll meet again!"
When I woke up the next morning, I realized
that her beautiful face was right next to me!

Where is Freud when you need him?
What put us in adjacent seats at the
Cape Cod Symphony six years ago?
Was it all part of God's eternal plan?