Potpourri: Reincarnation Revisited

Parker has clarified that his total recall vis-à-vis his past lives is not just a byproduct of acquiring the same brain upon each “jump.” As a hedge against God screwing up and giving him a different brain, “I get my mom in each life to buy me a camera, I take lots of pictures of things just before I die, and I take them with me, so when I get to the next life, I can look at them and say, ‘Whoa, that was ME in my last life. Look at all of the stuff that I did.’” Soooooooo many questions: How, exactly, do you take the pictures with you? How do you know that death is imminent and a frantic round of picture-taking is in order? And your mom in EACH life buys you a camera? How did the mom of “Brave Sir Knight Parker” manage to procure one, centuries before cameras were invented?

Connor and I asked these questions. And Parker ignored them, and went on to drop the next bombshell:

“Lady Gaga was my mom in one of my past lives.”

If Parker can be described as “not much of a detail guy,” Connor can be described as the exact opposite. The eleven year-old walking encyclopedia waded in with both feet:

“Parker, that is impossible. Lady Gaga doesn’t have children.”

“She wasn’t Lady Gaga then. She was Lady Gaga BEFORE SHE WAS LADY GAGA, WHEN SHE WAS IN A PAST LIFE. And I was in a past life. And she was my mom, and then she got old and died, and then I died, and then she was reborn AS A FREAKY PERSON, and then I was reborn.”

Got all of that?

I took the opportunity to remind Connor of his youthful insistence that his real parents were Dallas residents named Carlos and Carol McLean and that, once upon a time, Carlos had to climb the radio tower outside of Amon Carter Stadium to rescue a baby Connor, after “bad men” had kidnapped him. Needless to say, the very suggestion that he used to be fanciful stunned the walking encyclopedia into (temporary) silence.

Later that same day, though, the boys picked up the discussion:

Connor (AKA “the easily scandalized Western Judeo-Christian Conservative”): “How can you believe in reincarnation if you’re a CHRISTIAN?”

Parker: (AKA “the freaky-deaky Eastern Mystic”): “Why can’t I?”

Connor: “Because God went to a lot of trouble to make Heaven PERFECT, but you’re in a hurry to GO BACK DOWN. And that’s rude. You’ll offend God.”

Parker: “Hey – HE’s the one that keeps reincarnating ME.”

Point to Parker.