On this occasion he raised his left hand to interrupt me (his right side is still partially paralyzed, some movement in right leg but nothing except the right thumb working a little in the right arm). He asked if I had had cats before. I replied that I had.
He then gave me a stumbling dissertation on how all living things have a soul, a soul of life, and animals have a more complex soul than plants, but that humans are the only animals with a spirit attached to their soul of life in much the same way the soul of life is attached to the physical body.
At that point I wanted to interrupt and ask something, but I hesitated because sometimes interrupting him stops the flow coming through into speech. He went on to say that all living things are bound into a cycle of life connected to the planet of their origin and keep recycling into new bodies after dying, all except humans. That it is our spirit part that breaks that cycle of recycling over and over in another body, and that God has given us knowledge that we will eventually be given another body to occupy, but that body will be somehow out of the cyclic system of this planet.
The questions I was left wondering about were, what about the life level of the cells in a human body, are they in that recycling loop but the soul of the individual using those cells is not? And, if the life of a previous cat is now in the current cat, does the current cat have any clue regarding the previous life? and of course a host of other questions have bubbled into my slow witted brain as I've thought about that amazing assertion from him.
Tom is not a simple man. He is very highly educated and has lived 68 years, doing a whole host of things in his life. He suffered a couple of strokes more than twenty years ago, and I went up to South Bend to bring him down to where I live so that family could be more involved with his life. he continued to live independently, with only car service and occasional lunch meetings, then being at family gatherings once per year. With his episode last May, many of we cousins have been spending more time with him.
Our family on my Mother's side had nineteen grand-kids/19 first cousins, of all ages, but a gaggle of us were within three years of each other in age and spent several summers at our grandparents home in Tennessee as kids. We try to maintain as best we can a family sense via gathering on our grandfather's farm August of each year. There are now great grand-kids enjoying the Tennessee scene via these gatherings. By being in Tennessee, Tom has been able to partake of this family gathering thing. He is looking forward to trying to be there this coming August, in 2015. He may make it, with a little help from the cousins.
One question that I had wanted to ask relates to aliens from other planets, if there are such visitors to Earth, when they die away from their planet does their life recycle back on their planet? I doubt I will ask him that now, however, since the concept of quantum entanglement gives me something of an answer, IF the aliens do not possess a spirit.
So the animals get new bodies on this planet and only humans get a new body that isn’t on this planet? Is that the gist of it?
I have suspected that heaven is another dimension that we cannot see until we leave our earthly body. However, apparently we are able to recognize each other there.
I know this sounds silly but I have been hoping that in heaven I could have my animals....assuming they let me into heaven. :-)