Running, Ducks, Reincarnation, Resurrection...

Today it is sunny. Very warm, cloudless Mr. blue sky.
Not good. I have to go for a run some mornings, in order to keep
working properly. I prefer running (really jogging) when it's
raining because it keeps me cool. So I was relieved to still finish my
5.3k in just under half-an-hour today - a time anyone my age should be
disappointed at, and anyone younger than me should laugh at.
The last time i ran in the rain there was water off a duck's back.
And plenty of ducklings of various sizes. Some stayed calm, others
scattered. Some of the comically waddling escapees ran into the
water; others ran along the path in front of me. Some ducklings have
very poor spatial awareness. I think they were females. Judging by
their colouring and nothing else, of course. Ducks have small brains.
But I think avian intelligence is vastly under-rated. Crows are
frighteningly clever - as smart as any other animal IMHO. Bird brains
have to be small and compact in order for them to be light enough to
fly. I reckon they're just more efficient than mammalian brains. But
there's no substitute for cubic capacity (as American muscle-car
enthusiasts say) and humans are unique in our brainpower.

There's an aquarium kind of thing at Lakeside where you can see ducks.
There's a multi-level water tank so you can see them diving under the
water - where they are surprisingly elegant in their movement. If I
were to come back as an animal, in a Hindu kind of way, I'd want to be
a duck. They can walk on land, swim on water, dive under the water,
and even fly. That's brilliant!
But of course downward reincarnation doesn't really make sense. The
information pattern or whatever it is that makes you you has a
minimum hardware requirement. And that seems to be a human being.
There just isn't the capacity in any other creature to accommodate a
human 'soul'. (I use that word in a corporeal, non-platonic,
non-cartesian sense.) The only place left for us to go is up. That
is, to some kind of body that is somehow greater than a human body.
We have only an inkling of what that might be like, as recorded in the
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

John 20:19 "That evening (the first day of the
week), the doors being locked where the disciples were because they
feared the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them,
'Peace be with you.'"