Kindred souls?

What are those exactly?

Dictionary.com led me to a variety of definitions for the adjective form of "kindred":  associated by origin, nature, qualities; having the same belief, attitude, or feeling; related by birth or descent; having kinship; belonging to kin or relatives, etc....

As a management consultant for our internal consulting group, I get to work with a variety of people within a huge healthcare organization.  Everything from nurses to doctors, to senior executives to marketing people to regulators to union reps--you name it.   It just depends on the project.  My current project is interesting--to say the least.  But "interesting" in the same way my mom always told me to never call anything ugly---just say it's "interesting".  Oh, mom. J

It's more like stressful, crazy, frustrating, [insert usual moan & groan complaint]....but this one's pretty, uh, "special".  But maybe what makes it seems a bit more "special" than usual is because it's a completely different group--in every sense: content, people, environment, culture, workstyle, etc. *and* it has this really interesting mix of people (i.e., demographically, interpersonally, etc.). 

Everyday, on my way home from work, I like to take a few moments to decompress and just reflect on the day.  It helps keep perspective (and sanity).  Today's workday was very long, as has been the past few days, even weeks.  I've been working closely with this new department so tonight's thoughts wandered towards certain relationships I have with a few people in the group.  For the most part, I get along (at least I think I do) with everyone in the group (knock on wood).   But a few folks really stand out and not in a way that's the usual "play nice with your clients" kind of way, but more of a non-pickup-line "Hey, I know you from someplace before?" kind of way. 

One of them is with a pretty high-up leader guy who's probably about 20 years my senior who I just completely adore as a little brother while respecting as an older one at the same time; the other is with a woman who despite having moved to another group within the company, we still work with and has just such a calming, strangely familiar and comforting spirit; and another one is with a woman who is a straight-up, no-nonsense, but gentle and (as my manager so accurately put it) has "an old, wise soul".

It just made me then wonder about all the other people in my life and how/why there's a deeper, instantaneous connection with some more than others.  My Christian faith grounds me by believing that everything happens for a reason—people come into and go out of your life for a reason, seemingly random events occur for a reason…

But sometimes, too, I like to toy around with the idea that God isn't wasteful so my silly, spiraling logic then runs this way:  when a person is born, they're given a spirit and soul.  When they die, the spirit goes back to God and the soul, well, it goes whichever way that free-will life dictates.  So then I think, "Well, if heaven and hell has souls running around in it,  are the spirits just chillin' out in some lounge having an afterwork drink saying, "Good job, Joe.  Boss is gonna like that one"?  I mean, where do *they* go? They gotta go somewhere right?

Hmm…reincarnation? 

Maybe. Maybe not.  I don't know if I really believe in reincarnation, much less know much about it to have an opinion. The idea of it seems present in a lot of "belief systems", but each calling it it's own thing.  It's all semantics really and I'm not really looking to categorize it or even find a solution--it's just a thought to help pass the time.  But it does make me think: Are these people kindred spirits?  Have we met sometime before and are just now reconnecting?  or are these people who just share common interests; who just can sympathize with the stress we're all undergoing with this crazy project? 

Who knows.  But at least it made the train ride home pass more quickly. J