As part of my ongoing exploration of my beliefs, I have revisited re-incarnation. During my time studying to be ordained as a Buddhist minister, I came to appreciate and understand this doctrine.
Surprisingly, Mormonism has its own history of re-incarnation, which we largely call “Multiple Mortal Probations”, or “MMPs” for short. This was perhaps first taught by Heber C. Kimball in the Nauvoo era, and Joseph Smith Jr. seemed to support the idea when Kimball taught it.
Throughout his life, Kimball used the analogy of pottery, likely because he himself was a potter. I decided to make my own version of this analogy:
Consider the potter, who takes a lump of clay and places it upon their wheel to form it into a vase. The clay is molded, turned, and fashioned into various forms, each movement bringing it closer to becoming a beautiful vase. However, if the clay resists taking on its destined form, it will be cut off the wheel and cast back into the mill to be ground over again. This cycle continues – sometimes as many as 50 or 100 times – until the clay is able to be formed.
So it is with us. We are the clay, our Parents in Heaven are the potters, and mortality is the mill. We are molded, turned, and fashioned into various forms, each mortal probation bringing us closer to exaltation. However, if we resist our divine destiny, we too must return to mortality for further refinement. We are given time and again, probation after probation, to mold our spirits so we may take on every divine attribute.
This molding is essential, for without it, we cannot hope to stand in the Celestial presence of our goddesses, gods and deities as equals. Once this exaltation is reached, we may pick up our mortal frames in Celestial glory.