Reincarnated?

The Gospel of Trees by Apricot Irving tells the story of a missionary kid in Haiti.  Aside from the issue of missionary effectiveness, the book highlights the stunning disparity between worlds.  This mission-minded family with precious little personal resources had been in the country a while when they seriously considered adopting a struggling Haitian infant brought to the American Baptist hospital.  The family ultimately decided it unwise to attempt it; the tiny girl had a living parent and family.  Thus that child's life, unlike the author's, remained grim over the years.  "The world's deep inequity was a wound that never healed."  "No matter what path we could have taken, we would have failed her:  love's inevitable sorrow" (306).

I, like Apricot, have all I need and more--so too my family, neighbors, friends, and a majority of fellow Americans generally speaking.  In fact, with so many ways of making our lives easy and with such an abundant food supply we make ourselves sick.

           
Sometimes when I think about this, a strange thought comes to mind:  Could I have been reincarnated?   Seriously.  

I know that, as a Christian, it's anathema to set this idea out there.  It is appointed unto man once to die, after all, and after that the judgement:  Hebrews 9:27.  

"Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences.  Christ's death was also a one-time event . . . ."  The Message 

That's pretty clear.  When glaring inequities present themselves though, my wondering returns.  It comes not from any thought that I earned an upgrade in another life, but rather from a sense that there should be, there must be, some fairness, some justice.  (See CS Lewis's Mere Christianity.) 

So here's what I imagine.  Let's say I was born a malnourished child in Haiti.  Or perhaps born at the bottom of the hierarchy in a caste-based society.  I could have been born to a Syrian family uprooted by horrific civil war, born female in Afghanistan, born with dark skin to a cocaine mom in Los Angels.  How about born a Jew in Germany a hundred years ago?  Born with a clef palate in Switzerland or born to a Tiger Mom in a Hong Kong high rise.  I could have been born ugly and stupid to an abusive family or I could have been born, God forbid, to a rich and arrogant man like our current president. 

Let's say, in that situation, I have the presence of mind to cry out to God.  Maybe I look at the more fortunate people in the world--in whatever respect more fortunate--and ask, "How can they carry on with their relatively unburdened lives when I live in misery?  Where is my cup of water?"
 

And God says, "Ok.  Let's see if you do any better as one of the fortunate ones."

Boom!  

I am re-birthed to humble, healthy, stable, loving parents with hearts for God who, although not well-to-do themselves, live in the heartland of America the Beautiful.  And then I have the further good fortune to get an education, to marry a wonderful man, to raise a beautiful family with him and . .. .

But wait.  What's that other voice crying out?

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.

Love mercy, now.

Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

But neither are your free to abandon it.        

                                                     Talmud, Mishnah, Avot 2:21