My "Bucket List"

Deb and I went to see this movie Friday night. She still had some free movie tickets left over from Christmas gifts and I will soon have my Friday nights taken up with "Celebrate Recovery," so we went out on a date while we had the chance.

I won't talk much about the movie in case you haven't seen it yet. We enjoyed it even though, of course, Hollywood loves profanity and we don't. I just want to talk about the obvious premise of the movie. The "bucket list" is a list of all the things you want to do before you "kick the bucket."

I also just finished reading the January 2008 issue of Smithsonian and its cover article, "28 Places to See Before You Die." So far I've only seen one of these places (the Grand Canyon) and I only got to see it for ten minutes back when I was in college and traveling with a quartet, singing and preaching in different churches each night. We drove 100 miles out of our way and broke the speed limit in Arizona and California in order to get to our next meeting on time. But that's another story.

The movie and the magazine article have caused me to ponder. What do I want to do and see before I die?

Hmmm...

I'd like to take Deb on a cruise to Hawaii. She's always wanted to go on a cruise and always wanted to go to Hawaii - so I could kill two fowls with one rock. [I myself would prefer going on a cruise to Alaska or Antartica. I like cold and isolated places. Don't try to psychoanalyze that - you'll spoil the fun.]

Touring Europe with the family is also a goal. Since Brooke, Matthew and Andrew are in Spain, we can branch out from there together when we go to see them on future trips. I already thoroughly enjoyed seeing parts of Spain on our last trip. Segovia was my favorite. I still marvel at the adqueduct built by the Romans 2 millenia ago - a breathtaking feat of architecture.

I can hardly wait for Brandon and Keshia and Bethany and David to have children - and Brooke and Matthew to have more. I really get excited at the prospect of our kids having kids and seeing what they look like and how they act. I'm a family guy for sure. A big part of my bucket list is to continue to enjoy our family.

Like in the movie, I'd like to skydive.

Being on a game show like "Jeopardy" or "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," sometimes sound fun to me. If they just stuck to history and geography questions and such, I might try out for a show like these. But there are too many zany categories for me to seriously consider it.

In addition I'd like to see: Israel; the Parthenon and Coliseum in Rome; The Great Pyramids; The Great Wall of China; The jungles of Africa; the Austrailian Outback; any great mountains; the windmills of the Netherlands; the Nile; the Amazon; the aurora borealis; etc.

Other activities on my bucket list (no particular order): hang glide; learn Spanish; write a book; write worship songs for my church to sing; spend a week in a mountain cabin all alone; spend a couple of weeks with the whole family in a mountain cabin; retire and open a used book store - spending my days buying and selling books, talking to other book lovers and READING...

More than anything of course, and I'm trying to be honest and not super-spiritual, I'd like to know God better and share His love with others more effectively.

That's part of my "bucket list." How about yours?