Bucket Lists

When I was in high school in the 70s, our church youth group traditionally held a New Year's Eve party. One annual rite was making a list of goals and projects that one would like to complete during the next year.

I remember one year when my friend Mark died of leukemia. He was just 2 years older than me and I was a pallbearer at his funeral. I recall my father (who was also my youth pastor) summarizing what Mark had written the previous New Year's Eve before his graduating to heaven.

Little did I realize then that this exercise in forward thinking could be seen in the same way as writing a bucket list. Earlier this week I watched the film "The Bucket List" with my wife and father. The film revolves around a bucket list created by two men with terminal cancer. Before they kick the bucket, they want to fulfill as many things on the list as possible. In the film, Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) says to Carter (Morgan Freeman), "We can do this. We should do this"

One of the bonus features is a short blurb on "bucket lists" by Justin Zackham, the film's screenwriter. He helped create a book titled "The Bucket List" that tells different people's "bucket lists" and mentions how people's hopes an dreams evolve over a lifetime.

Young people's lists are primarily accomplishment oriented, such as doing this or owning this. As they get older and become parents, their list often shrinks down to 1 or 2 things. But as people get older, bucket lists become primarily about family, friends, and love. In this way, I am very blessed to have a wife of 11 years and 3 healthy children, all of whom live under the same roof.

As Carter and Cole are looking at the pyramids in Egypt, Carter mentions that in one culture, people who died and are at the gates of heaven are asked 2 questions:
(1) Have you found joy in your life?
(2) Have you brought joy to others?
These are useful questions to consider when evaluating where one's life currently is and where one wants to go.