Top of the List

Last night Maureen and I watched The Bucket List. This is not a modern classic, but it is not as bad as the TV trailers led me to believe. It’s a better-than-average film for a “nothing on TV” evening.

The premise of the movie is that two geezers, dying of cancer, decide to seize the day and do some of the things that they’ve always dreamed they would do. It starts off as a lark but eventually turns philisophical. At a key point Morgan Freeman asks Jack Nicholson, “have you experienced joy in your life?” He goes on to ask a second question, “have you given joy to others?”

The question hit me hard. Several years ago after doing a men’s study based on John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart, I decided to be more intentional about becoming more “fully alive.” I decided to start aggressively going after the things on my own “mental bucket list.” And I’ve done a lot of stuff over the past three years.

Has any of this brought me joy? I can’t say that it has. My heart was with Jack Nicholson, sitting on the edge of a pyramid trying to recall what joy looks like or feels like.

So maybe those are a couple of items for a hypothetical bucket list. To experience joy. To bring joy to others.