Butch Wants to Be Reincarnated!

  I tend to be a very inquisitive person. If a question or circumstance comes up in which I don’t know the answer, then I am determined to get to the truth. Since I am getting up there in years and will be six feet under at some point in time, I need to make a decision. As a Christian, I believe that I will end up in Heaven or Hell. Hopefully, a forgiving God will escort me to the former. However, a study has shown that 22 percent of Christians believe in reincarnation…you know, where a deceased person comes back into this world as another person, animal, plant or spirit. There are several religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, that believe in reincarnation, in which a person’s soul continues after death and is reborn.

   The “new form” is determined by a person’s actions in their previous life. For instance, if you were a nice person and did lots of good things during your life, you might be reincarnated as a king or queen, or maybe even a saint. However, if you were a nasty and mean-spirited person during your life, you might possibly be reborn as a possum or toad or who knows what?

   There are instances in which very young children have claimed to have been someone else in a previous life. Some of these children have exceptional abilities beyond their age, or they can recall events from the past that occurred many years before they were born. Many scientists are skeptical, but many occurrences cannot be explained. There are famous people who claim to have been reincarnated…Mark Twain, Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandi, the Dalai Lama, and Napoleon…just to name a few.

   It certainly would be nice if I knew if reincarnation was true or not. Perhaps I could change my lifestyle to help forge my reborn identity in the next life. I told my wife that I might want to be a billionaire so that I could give money away to people in need, or perhaps a famous author. I could be one of my childhood heroes…another Lone Ranger, Wyatt Earp, Mickey Mantle…maybe even Superman! And if I come back as an animal…perhaps a beautiful wild horse, or maybe a majestic American bald eagle. She pondered that a few seconds, and stated that more likely I would come back as a jackass….Thanks, dear. 

   One afternoon when I was speaking with a lady here at the library, a fly kept buzzing around us. I swatted it away each time until the pesky fly finally perched itself on the counter. I grabbed a fly swatter and slowly raised it to do away with the fly once and for all….when the woman cried out, “Don’t do it…that’s Joe!” Hmmm…I was a little perplexed. Joe was her deceased husband. It sure didn’t look like Joe to me. Joe had a mustache. The fly appeared to be clean shaven. She truly believed her deceased husband had been reincarnated as a common house fly. Well, later on I got to thinking about the time a few years ago when this lady had found out that ol’ Joe had been having an affair. I guess instead of becoming an angel in Heaven, he “received his wings” in a rather unusual way. But at least he is now free to roam all over the countryside…as long as he stays clear of fly swatters and Black Flag insect spray.

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 36 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.