Thoughts on Birth and Rebirth

It is because of the sexual drive to procreate that most of us are born. Most of us don’t have the Holy Spirit fill our mother and an angel swing by to tell us that she is going to give birth to the Son of God. Most of us don’t even have a spiritual entity herald that our lives are going to be extraordinary in any way. We are just born, without any say in the matter and very little idea about what our purpose in life might be.

Our ego’s inclination is to try to control as many aspects of our existence as possible, thinking that if we do, we are in charge of our own destiny. And don’t the New Age prophets tell us that we can be anything we want to be if we only believe?… even if this is a bit like saying to the cat that it can be rose if it only believes.

However, just as we are not in charge of the hour of our birth, most of us are not in charge of the hour of our death… and in actual fact not very many things in between. We constantly do what we do not want to do deep down and refrain from doing the things we know we should be doing for the Highest Good. To sin is to ‘miss the mark’ if we trace the root meaning of this word etymologically… and guess what. We all miss the mark. While this may sound totally disempowering, I beg you to stick with me and listen with discernment.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Did I choose my parents?
Did I choose my nationality?
Did I choose my school in my childhood formative years?
Did I choose my first crush or did it just kind of happen?
Did I choose to be born with an aptitude for (________)?
Did I choose to struggle with (_______) at school?

All these things greatly shaped who you are and what options you now have in life.  But they are not you, nor are they – ultimately – your destiny. Your destiny is to be a rose if you were born a rose and _______(your name) if you were born _______. Why? So that God can be given the glory.

When we live in a world where nobody is starving, abandoned, or abused, it will be because we have all turned our lives over to a Higher Power which is what it takes for humans to do unto others as they would have others do unto them instead of being self-serving. And if you think this is bollox, ask yourself ‘Am I keeping only what I truly need in terms of time and resources, and giving the rest to the poor and suffering?’ 

All strivings to bring glory to ourselves are doomed to failure and all we get to take with us when we die is what we did to relieve the suffering of others. Once we realise this – and most of us only do under duress – we are able to surrender completely to grace.

The reason I have chosen a picture of the leaning tower of Pisa for my Tower card in the Frideborg Tarot is that most of us do all we can to prop our ego up and now there is so much in the world around us to help fortify a doomed structure. Most New Age texts are nothing but glorified instruction manuals for how to make your ego even stronger.

Before you were born, your soul was infused with a desire to be born. Even the desire to live is an act of grace and it gives us enough strength to cope with the initial stress of transitioning from the world of spirit to this much harsher environment. The desire to be reborn is also an act of grace that usually first happens when the structure we erected stars creaking because we built it on a faulty foundation.

But the voice of the ego can often be loud enough to overwhelm the still, small voice within that is pleading for succor and a fresh start… and so we keep going, using what we can to prop ourselves up in the life situation that we have ensconced ourselves in… Until the inevitable happens and the Tower comes crumbling down. (FYI, scientists give the leaning tower of Pisa a couple of hundred years more before the inevitable collapse occurs.)

Those who then turn to God for help can start over with rebuilding a destiny that fully aligns them with their calling to be the (______) who gives glory to God by simply existing… OR they can start over with an even more fanciful and self-deluded plan until they learn the lesson another way.

During my lifetime, I have erected many such Towers, yet have experienced the grace to be reborn several times. Most notably these lessons have come through close personal relationships and trying to create the love that was missing in my childhood home. My mother abandoned me with my physically and psychologically abusive father when I was only three years old and this wired me to look for love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. I missed the mark completely.

Ultimately, the lesson is to place my trust in God and God alone to provide me with the love I need, so that I may reflect this love out into the world. Knowing this, I can be happy right now, no matter what my outside circumstances look like.

We don’t need fancy instruction manuals or New Age gurus making thousands of dollars off our pain; We only need enough despair and contrition to repent (which is a fancy way of saying ‘turn away from our old ways’), say ‘Thy will be done’ and then surrender fully to the grace and goodness of God who so loved the world…

We don’t need sorcerers and magicians with puffed-up egos claiming that they alone hold the keys to the Kingdom when the truth whispers in every heart… because, yeah, grace really is that all-encompassing. If you are quiet for a minute right now, you’ll be able to hear the truth. And you know it’s truth if it brings you to your knees.

We don’t need to keep using affirmations that gloss over the already rotting structures in place to keep the ego upright.

We need to fall on our knees and say ‘God, I can’t do this on my own. I fuck up every time I try. I need your grace. I thank you that my name was on your lips when you died on the cross. I thank you that your Holy Spirit will guard and keep every step I take on this path. I thank you that your blood and your blood alone can wash my slate clean. I exchange my cleverness for your grace, my desire for yours, and my self-love for the love of God. Amen and so it is! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

This is the new perspective we need and this is why I chose the cross of Christ and the two thieves as my Hanged Man card picture in the Frideborg Tarot.

This new perspective allows us to be born again – an act of grace that can happen many times in the life of an individual. This is what Jesus says about being born again:

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Blessed Be!

Lisa Frideborg