The Bucket List

The clinic corridor was buzzing with curiosity as a small crowd gathered around two doctors who just returned from a three-week vacation to South Africa. The doctors, a pediatric cardiologist and a pediatric oncologist, decided to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip together, during which they spent many hours in the various wildlife preserves, saw innumerable large mammals, and tracked down the “big five”, i.e., the elephant, the lion, the leopard, the rhinoceros, and the Cape buffalo, with their guide in open-air Land Rovers. The excitement reached a climax as they recounted how they got dangerously close to a rhinoceros that nearly charged at them, and a voice in the group chided the surviving travelers for putting the clinic at risk of losing two doctors on the same day. Another pediatrician, who also took a similar vacation a few years ago, exclaimed that every person needs to take this trip at least once in his or her lifetime, and the returning adventurers heartily agreed. In other words, an African safari is on their “bucket list”.

Bucket lists, that is, lists of items to check off before one dies (kicks the bucket), have become quite popular nowadays. There are books on places to visit before you die, restaurants to eat at before you die, and in a recent issue of an endurance sports magazine, I even saw a bucket list of events for hardcore runners...let's see how many I can check off:

Boston Marathon – check...did it in 2007

Comrades Marathon in South Africa – 56 miles...probably doable if I don't get too old...maybe in a few years?

Western States Endurance Run – 100 miles in the mountains? I'm not good with directions, so it will probably turn into 150 miles...forget it....

Seriously, you can't always take these lists too seriously.

Do I have a “bucket” list? Well, not exactly, but I do hope to someday see Alaska, be on a cruise, go to Europe, have grandchildren, and finish a triathlon. However, experiencing the awesome, majestic presence of the holy God would be on the short list if I have one. It was certainly highly endorsed by king David long ago:

One thing I ask of the LORD,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to seek him in his temple

(Psalm 27:4)

Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

(Psalm 84:10)

Would I rather be in the house of the LORD, or be charged by an angry rhino in South Africa? One experience is bound to be life-changing, while the other is potentially life-ending. There is no comparison.