Mentor
Souls
“Counselor
Jerry C: Hello, there, I’m Jerry, a counselor here at the You Seminar. Now, you
don’t remember it, but you’ve been here before. But don’t worry, forgetting the
trauma of childbirth is one of the great gifts of the universe. Here at the You
Seminar, all new souls are given unique and individual personalities.
New
soul 1: I’m an agreeable skeptic who’s cautious yet flamboyant.
New
soul 2: I’m an irritable wallflower who’s dangerously curious.
New
soul 3: I’m a manipulative megalomaniac who’s intensely opportunistic.
Counselor
Jerry C: Uh-oh, this one might be a handful. But that’s Earth’s problem. That’s
where you [Joe Gardener] come in.”
Transcript
from the 2020 Disney Pixar Movie: “Soul”)
I watched
this intriguing, animated film with friends last night. It featured the voices
of Jamie Fox and Tina Fey in the starring roles and was a rendition of one man’s
journey through near-death. It was both funny and, in parts, poignant, with the
main character, Joe Gardner, undergoing a life review while trying to return to
his body after a fall in a manhole rendered him unconscious. Along the way, the
script provided lots of good food for thought. Take this little snippet of the
interaction between Joe’s soul and the heavenly counselor who’s attempting to
make him a mentor to a very difficult new soul. It suggests (1) that we get
several cycles of coming here; (2) that our personalities are set before we are
born; and (3) that our souls are sent here with a mentor to guide us. There are
many more cogent ideas about life and what is real and what is not in this film—including
how “lost souls” come about.
Anyone
who’s had and/or reared a child knows that they come here who they are, and
that nothing you do can in any way make them otherwise (not that you would want
to). Genetics does not account for that because even identical twins are
different from one another in personality.
There
is a reluctant soul in the film, who does not want to be born, and I have
known, as I’m sure you have, people who clearly say from birth that they don’t
want to be here. But what the film is truly about is what makes life worth
living—which they refer to as “your spark.” Finding what you truly love, what
you believe you were born to do, is gratifying and worth whatever difficulties
it causes, but according to the film, you are here to fulfill your assigned
role. And that may or may not be what gives you joy. It may be that your
purpose is to serve as mentor to others, even if that feels alien and
disagreeable to you.
There
was a conversation among us before watching the film about the way life fetches
up things and sets them before us—even things we haven’t asked for and truly
don’t want. About the way life seems to be random until you begin looking at it
in the rearview mirror. Then you are able to string together incident to
incident and begin to understand how and why this happened, which led to that,
which brought you to your here and now—and all of it seemed to be random, or
maybe coincidental, or was it synchronous? While you have gone about the
business of living what you thought was the “real purpose” of your life, maybe
that mentor soul who came with you has been hard at work moving the scenes
around, making sure you do what you are truly here to do. I mean…who knows?
The
film is on Disney Channel is you’re interested.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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