Lesson Learned

My children are not my own.

President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that he was a parent before you were parents and that he has not relinquished his parental rights or interest in these little ones."

"Though in mortality we may bear children with our bodies, and tend their bodies and spirits, the reality is that they are not our eternal increase--they are the Lord’s eternal increase." (Cassler-Square 2 article)

Duly noted.

And yet, through the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, I receive the promise of having "eternal increase" i.e "a continuation of the seeds forever and ever." (D&C 132:19) which is the promise that through becoming gods (vs 20), our children then become our own, not on loan to us through our Heavenly Parents but our own spiritual creation.

How sobering to learn that the children that have come forth from my body are more like my siblings--that's where that feeling as been coming from! Its not just because I'm an only child and never before had known what it was like for a young child to persistently need to interact and be near me. It will not be until I am a perfect being, a god, that my children will really be my own and it won't be the children who were born to me in this place. My Willem, my Belle will take their place next to me as equals as creators of their own worlds.

I may not really ever feel like my spiritually begotten children are entirely my own because like our heavenly parents have done with us and our earthly children, we would then give custody over to other parents who in reality are also our children.

Circle within circles. No human is ever really belonging to another person. Slavery, then cannot rightfully exist.

How then, if I reflect, do I feel like I really belong to my heavenly parents? Am I really theirs? Do they feel that I am really theirs since according to the pattern, they have granted my earthly parents the opportunity to tend to my development?

Does that lead me to feel that in a way, I am more equal and capable because I'm not eternally being viewed as a child, belonging to someone else? The mores of human and spiritual connection our there anchoring me to comfort and familiarity, but I stand independently as a spiritual entity, created and nurtured and buoyed up on many sides of existence as a spirit. Like my earthly children become equals to me, I become equal with God . They become equal with God.

We are all equals.

Reincarnation in LDS Doctrine?

In a book group, I am discussing the book "What Dreams May Come" by Richard Matheson. The members of the book group are mainly LDS so there has been a lot of discussion regarding the ending which portrays reincarnation. Pretty much everything up until that point is pretty analogous to LDS doctrine. I figured I was doing due diligence to read about what has been taught regarding reincarnation too. It seems auspicious that I was introduced to the group Mormon Mystics at the same time, as learning about Joseph Smith's investigation into Kabbalah led me to know that he discussed and taught about the idea of reincarnation.

I know that the term wasn't used until after his death so he never said the word "reincarnation" but he did use terminology synonymous to it. My confusion comes from being unclear in LDS terms what he was referring to. The only sources I've found for this discussion are from Sunstone and this presentation entitled "Reincarnation and The Restoration: Does Joseph Smith's Last Teaching Help Explain Pre-Mortality and Eternal Progression?" offers the clearest explanation, yet the concept is still very unclear to me.

It seems there are two proposals for how reincarnation works in LDS theology:

1) Resurrection and eternal progression means that the same spirit inhabits different bodies though the same personality is present and the bodies resemble the physical body from this life. I heard it proposed that as we progress to perfection, we will live on different planets and fulfill different roles in the plan of salvation for others: as a Holy Ghost, as a Savior, as a God the Father, etc.

2) There are some things in life that require a new body (e.g. grievous sin that cannot be repented of in this life or the world to come--murder is an example or through infant mortality, spontaneous abortion where a spirit does not get a "fair chance" to inhabit mortality). When one of these things occur it becomes expedient for a spirit to enter into a new body to either repent and do better with the new life given them or to get the opportunity to live a full life and the complete experience of mortality.

Both of them could be true simultaneously because they are not mutually exclusive of one another.

There also seemed like there was a choice that could be made, that a person could opt to enter into a new body and earth to improve upon their probation which could be considered an addendum to #2 above.

On to the personal reaction to those ideas: I'm open to accepting them as true but like historical reactions to polygamy, I don't like the sound of it. The plan I like the sound of is (without reincarnation): you live, you die, you spend your time in the spirit world learning and working, you live in the Millennium finishing the work on the earth, you are judged according to your work on earth and in the spirit world, you repent in some area of the spirit world if needed and then you enter into your final abode, get your resurrected body and live in the kingdom you have earned, and while you live there, you learn more and progress to become a god of your own world. If I'm sounding whiny, I am because the idea of reincarnation to me sounds like a lot more work and a harder plan to accomplish. I also have a sense of attachment to who I consider my self. I want to be me through out eternity. I also have reservations on how a doctrine of reincarnation affects eternal families. It seems to me that instead of a chain linking generations together, it becomes a web of links; more like chain mail than a cord.

Even as I wrote about the plan of how I want and how have interpreted it in my understanding, I see multiple opportunities for gaining another body and experiencing mortality again. Perhaps the repenting done after the judgment is done in a mortal probation. Or, like what is portrayed in "What Dreams May Come" while waiting in the spirit world, opportunities to learn come from returning to the earth from which you have departed and going into a new body learn more about mortality (this would solve feeling like there are not enough hours in the day to learn everything there is to learn in this life). Or, yet another opportunity, comes after resurrection when you can lay aside your resurrected body and in preparation to becoming God one again inhabit a mortal body to "rise above and descend below all things" as Christ did (D&C 88:6).

A part of my frustration in understanding this concept is not having text resources to work with. I much prefer to read text and be able to stop and ponder and read the idea over and over again to understand it. I feel limited by the audio presentations. I'll be looking for transcripts of the presentations and hope that I can dig deeper into sources and ideas that way.