Beyond the Bucket

We know the expressions all too well. To “kick the bucket” is to die. To make a “bucket list” is to consider all the things one hopes to accomplish before one kicks the bucket. The expression became popularized in a movie by that name released in 2007. Many of us walk around with an informal list in our heads and hearts and sometimes we get around to making our hopes more concrete. But many more of us will never have the luxury of creating such a wish list because death comes unexpectedly, foreclosing on the possibility of naming that for which we hope.

A couple of decades ago, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch received attention for his now-famous “Last Lecture.” Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been told it was “terminal.” There was a timeline. A certainty. There was no kicking the bucket down the road a ways. Beyond what one hopes to do before one dies, there are words one might feel compelled to say. Randy Pausch did just that. But again, so many in the world won’t have the opportunity to speak what’s in their heads and on their hearts before their lives are unexpectedly stopped short.

Death and taxes. We joke about their inevitability. Can’t avoid paying taxes and can’t escape the reality of death. And yet, some have found loopholes and others choose illegal means of dodging the government and its tax assessors. And there is a growing impetus to extend physical life as long as possible, with experimentation and research in science and medicine seeking to delay the death and decay of the human body. Could it be that neither death nor taxes are truly unavoidable?

We could certainly add a third inescapable reality to that infamous duo: change. It’s often observed that the only thing that doesn’t change is change. It will happen. Sometimes it is sought after. Most of the time it just occurs in its own way and on its own timetable. When someone sets it in motion it can seem like dominoes. Some changes feel like a form of death. We grieve. We struggle to accept. We might even attempt to push back when an unwelcome change comes our way. We feel like kicking the bucket it was delivered in in anger. Is there an easy way to move beyond such a bucket?

If we’ve circled the sun for several decades or more, we know all too well that’s there’s no easy anything in life. Lists can be helpful. Lectures lovingly offered are beneficial. The best, clearly stated, is quite possibly to speak a love that doesn’t end even when death, taxes, or change come around.

Created by Rev. Rebecca Taylor, Pastor, without a drop of AI but with an enduring love writing this blog for the last time.