Once upon a time there was a very confused spirit. It lacked a sense of time and space. It didn't have the slightest idea where it came from or where it was going. Its conceptual grasp of the space/time continuum was non-existent and it hadn't even a rudimentary understanding of cause and effect or karmic relationships.
Some of the older, more experienced spirits tried to rescue the lost soul, totally ignoring the spiritual ban on co-dependent relationships. These well-meaning spirits tried to reason with the lost soul . They explained how space and time interacted and how it set up a chain of casualty on the material plane. They pointed out that all of them had very clear memories of life on the physical plane and the lost soul should be able to access memories of its prior lives.
They tried spiritual hypnosis, past life recall and invaded the gigantic computer files of the interstellar police. The latter was somewhat useless, in so far as the lost soul lacked fingerprints, retina patterns or a DNA signature. Past life recall and hypnosis produced a variety of results, as images from an island continent sinking under ocean waves emerged, along with one vision of being cooked in a large earthen ware pot.
Such images were quite common on the ethereal plane. However, the final memory involved a painful injection given by white uniformed men who avoided looking directly at the figure strapped down on a narrow table. This last image evoked considerable, though polite, controversy among the care taking spirits.
"She obviously was a criminal, condemned to die through lethal injection," declared one.
"No!" said a gentle rescuer," She must have been the victim of a cruel, medical experiment."
The controversy went on and on, threatening the harmony of the ethereal realm until, the lost soul spoke up, "Excuse me, fellow spirits, but how do I know if these images have anything to do with me? Perhaps I simply imagined them or drew them from your memories?"
This stopped her fellow spirits cold, for all of then knew about False Memory Syndrome and were aware how easy it was for a bodiless spirit to collect the memories of other souls. "Wait A minute!" said a previously silent spirit; "The real problem isn't where she came from but where she is going. After all, the past is dead and gone, what matters is the future!"
"We all know that!" said a rather abrasive soul . He had waited the earthly equivalent of 2,000 years for a spiritually alert, wealthy, and highly functional family to be born into. "But how can she make an informed choice if she doesn't know anything about physical life or what kind of karmic debt she needs to work off?"
Caught between the need to make a life choice and the void of ignorance, the lost soul wandered away from her would be rescuers, fell into a spiritual worm hole and was sucked into the womb of an abused fifteen year old.
In spite of youth, single parent status, and the unfortunate circumstances of his conception, the lost soul's mother did an excellent job of nurturing her son. The lost soul grew up to defend the rights of children and was instrumental in creating a climate where the welfare of a child was not held hostage by its parents' whims, moods or their social status.
Stories For A Winter Night