ODD THING, THIS "BUCKET LIST"

Yikes!  Oct 26 my last post? Odd. This one of the three I participate in is my favorite.  Few visit; sorta private.  This would leave you to believe I'm delinquent or dead.  Not yet; "dead" that is.  Guilty on "delinquent."  May I explain?

Been caught up in my passion...legacy building.  It's my swan song, my "finishing well" focus.  It's living with the grandwonderkind, daughter and soninlaw for weeks at a time and writing; living it and writing it.  Writing these days is compressed stuff.  Blogging on http://www.gendads.com/ and http://www.legacydad.com/ and doing queries to editors of major mags in vairous readership cultures. (Harder than writing the actual article). The book, Generational Fathering, not so much.  Soon will pour four isolated days each week. I hope. We'll see.  You can watch the progress on http://www.generationalfatheirng.com/

THREE GENERATIONS OF COWPOKES

This brings up the "bucket list". Yes, I'm still working on the five-year statistical framework of my fourth stage prostate cancer. If it were you, would it be a good thing? It is for me. Forces focus and value to each minute, each activity. Multiplied by 365, that just ain't that many days. Does 1852 sound like a lot. It didn't yesterday. Today it's 1851. "Yikes!" again. Which is why I go to my bucket list. Revision 6 or 8 or something. But, I do like this one I shared in a blog comment.

Before I share may list, let me share this. My son's life was transformed JIT by reading "Sacred Romance" by Curtis and Eldredge. He died six months later of cancer. He both announced and demonstrated the "romance" notion. Chapters 11 and 12 are a gateway to "getting it," to understanding what the journey is all about. "Coming Home" is a clue. Life of my 75 (or so) years is preparation for the rest, the un-countable years into eons into eternity. I'm ready. Soooo, dear friend, my "Five Year Window" frames my look out on to the Coming Home scene with Jesus and the Heavenly Hosts smiling and singing, probably dancing, too.

Well here 'tis:
A REAL Bucket List...as in "kicking the bucket." A narrowed and definitive window to Walk With God, love my wife more and better, family and friends, too. Rest of the bucket list gets less important, less urgent. Funny how the urgent "geterdone...NOW!" list is so much shorter. Yes, The Book(and speaking on Generational Fathering.com), and the Elk hunting trip as a passage rite for the oldest two grandsons, finishing the personal testimony tract--AND using it. Rest of the list is in 8 point type. Long term legacy stuff tops that list. Like maybe a trip to India with four grandkids so they know the world is bigger and poorer than they thought. A visit to the Cameron Clan homeland in south-central Scotland. Short term semi-legacy stuff like, magazine articles and blogs galore, return to Alaska with whole family( and revisit a Ketchikan high-lead logging site of my youth) and take the family by train to Denali, one sky dive (not toooo short a legacy, I hope), my Wheaton College 50-year class reunion, maybe one more beach honeymoon with my still-beautiful, still-alluring and fun bride. That's a pretty full five years. Bonus time will be spent hardening the foundation of our grandchildren's future as lighthouses for the dark generations of the future, maybe pitching in with daughter and son-in-law's dream ranch for intensive full-family therapy.