The Mulligan Life

In the world of golf there is a term called “the mulligan.” When a player makes a shot which is not to their liking in the early round of the game, they are permitted to call a mulligan, or a do-over shot without being penalized. This rule is typically practiced in casual golf play but is prohibited in tournament play.

The question which I want to place before you is this: Is your entire life casual or a tournament? Does grace give you a chance to do-over or does your religion take the position of what’s done is done, live with the consequences?

The Sporting Life

Today in most publicized sporting events, an interviewer will come to the winner of the event to get their perspective on the struggle they have endured to achieve their accomplishment. Many “believers” will begin their monologue with thanking God for directing them through their trails, deflecting any personal glory and accolades to Him first. Some will expand on this, claiming that their life is not their own and they are simply doing the will of the Father in the moment.

Rarely will there be an interview with those who have struggled but fell short of the victory where the vanquished will begin with the same thanks to God and the claim of doing the will of the Father in their defeat. This is the tournament of life after all – some win and some lose. Yet aren’t we all doing the will of the Father in the struggle?

Reality Check

We are told in 1 John that God is Love. We have no clue what this truly means. Claiming to be doing the will of the Father means demonstrating His love. However, we miss the mark in doing this time and again. The struggle of life is not the stuff we endure from birth to death; it is the inability to remain as love. This is our causal purpose not the casual manner we all strive to imitate.

Consider how when we arrive on this planet, we are unable to communicate with those around us. Our soul was in one moment basking in the kingdom of Love and then suddenly we are confronted with an environment that is so foreign to the very concept of Love we left from. Crying becomes a natural response as the beginning language in a Love-less habitat.

Have you ever pondered the divine reality of your soul’s presence here at this time and in this place is the will, the Love, of the Father? Your eternal soul chose to do this life in the finite mortal shell it inhabits to do and be the will of the Father. There is no randomness involved in you – that even includes the struggles.

Religion has done a masterful job of conditioning humanity on how it is finite. Your life is short lived and then you’re out of here forever. Live it perfectly and heaven is your reward; live it any other way and heaven is simply a dream vanquished.

So how are you doing with this life? If you’re brutally objective and honest with yourself there have been issues with being in the will of the Father throughout the course of your life. No need to sugar coat it, we’ve all been there (some even have elected to camp there). So, what do you do with this recognition of your infidelities to the will of Love?

Many religionists will claim the salvation found in the works of Jesus’s sacrifice for humanity. They will explain how man is born once and then dies to the thing of this world, only being redeemed by the blood of Christ through our faith.

Surely, we can all agree that God ways and thoughts are higher than ours. So, what if this present reality is merely the mulligan of your eternal life? Are you prepared to “do over” this life?

The Law of Destiny

On this world there is one law which dominates: Sowing and reaping. Seeds are planted, they develop from immature to established plants, which in turn produce seeds after their own kind and then wither away to return back to the soil becoming the nutrients for the next generation. The cycle repeats season after season.

The apostle Paul claims that this same law applies to us. Accordingly, we sow seeds, or deeds, to the flesh or to the Spirit and a harvest occurs in each realm based upon the seeds we delivered. In today’s vernacular we call this the law of cause and effect.

But what if your harvest doesn’t occur in the linear fashion we are accustomed to? What if instead of things going from A (cause) to B (effect) the cycle goes from A (cause) to Z (effect) with twenty-odd steps required to be processed (and each of these steps is a seed in their own right) before reaching the end effect?

It is common for people to have a desire to know their destiny in life. We search tirelessly to unravel the purpose we have been placed here on this planet, and how our purpose relates to those around us. Rarely, if ever, do people consider the possibility how our destiny is not of our doing, but part of the seedtime/harvest time of the divine plan.

Jesus told us that all things are possible to God. However, we limit His possibility with our traditions. As an example, we limit God’s grace when we believe it only applies under certain parameters where separation from God has manifested in our lives. “I am saved by His grace,” is a common claim of this traditional religious viewpoint.

Consider however, what if your entire life as an example of God’s grace, is a mulligan, a do-over? What if the divine plan for each of our souls is, as dictated by the law of seedtime and harvesttime, to do-over our time on this planet to get the reflection of Love properly displayed across every instance from past errors to within present circumstances?

What if this self-correcting measure of our eternal soul didn’t just span the product cycle of our mortal coil? What if your eternal soul had to go through multiple iterations as a means of remedying the fractured display offered in its first, and every subsequent demonstration?

Yes, I recognize how what I am describing is commonly called reincarnation. However, the traditional approach to this endeavor, as we have understood it is either being an impossibility or, as a means for one to return as a different species as the penance we deserved for past misdeeds. In both cases I personally think this is a limit upon the nature of God as it overlooks the fundamental idea of a mulligan lifestyle.

I already dealt with the impossibility issue so let’s address the elephant in the room (pun intended). Your soul is made in the image and likeness of God, not an elephant, ant, cow or any other creature upon this planet. God, Divine Ultimate Consciousness only places an eternal soul operating under the auspices of the Christ Consciousness into a finite mortal shell restricted to the nature of the five senses to live and breathe as the expression of God’s Love and Goodness in this physical environment.

Now I recognize that this foolishness of thought goes contrary to the doctrine of practically every western religious establishment. Yet, reincarnation was a common belief in the first church fathers and wasn’t really thought of as a heretical teaching until the conveyance of the Nicene Council in the early 300’s AD. These pious priests believed that in order to persuade people to fall in line with the doctrines of the church, they needed to eliminate all teaching which promoted the ultimate grace event in life and strictly adhere to the notion that this is the one and only life you’re given so you better make the best of it.

Consider this passage in light of what I’m talking about.

Mat 16:13-17
(13) When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
(14) And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
(15) He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
(16) And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
(17) And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

We have been taught how this is the revelation of Jesus being Christ. But what if it has a deeper meaning not only to Jesus but to all who it names? Notice in verse 14 as the disciples exclaim who the people think the Son of man is they name individuals who have already died. (John the Baptist is the exception to this narrative on another matter which I don’t have space and time to elaborate upon right now.)

If the first fathers of the church believed in reincarnation the disciples’ response here could be the validation for their belief. It could be that they were saying how the actions of Jesus reminded the people of how one of these people responded in the past. As an eternal soul travels through the field of time it is highly possible that the soul would demonstrate the same tendencies in each consecutive mortal life cycle. That generation would record those tendencies as being uniquely associated with the mortal who displayed them. Rarely would one generation connect their figures of prominence with those who have come before them and see the potential of a singular eternal soul in their midst.

This brings me to Peter’s revelation. It is quite possible that having seen the multitude of figures presented who have demonstrated similar tendencies, Peter connects the dots and arrives at the revelation that Jesus is the Christ. Just like we’ve been taught. But what if the confession of Peter is actually him recognizing that Christ has been active in all those who where mentioned?

What if Peter is saying Christ consciousness has been traveling throughout our history in an eternal soul who returns to us over and again? What if the revelation upon which the church is to be built upon is not specific to Jesus only being the Christ, but that every eternal soul has Christ consciousness embedded within it and is moving back and forth from the heavenly realm into the material realm?

The question that all this thought about the mulligan life brings up is what is the purpose or reason? This is something that I’ll be working on over the course of the next few postings. I hope that you’ll return as they become available and see where all of this is leading us to in our grace journey.