Been reading the script for “The Bucket List," starring Jack Nicholson (Edward) and Morgan Freeman (Carter) and came across the following:
Carter: “Everyone’s scared to die alone.”
Edward: “I’m not everyone.”
Carter: “Than you kidding yourself.”
We are everyone, and everyone is us, too.
I like that! It’s the bond that ties us all together, and makes it possible for us to love one another.
We are everyone, though Satan works tirelessly to convince us otherwise - that we are unique. Not only unique, but deserving of special benefits and favored status – the mindset of entitlement that divides and conquers the soul and isolates us in deep loneliness.
And it’s loneliness that fuels the consumption frenzy and leaves us stressed and sad at the end of the day.
In the end, both Carter and Edward find life even as they’re dying, because they dare to love one another and dare to love those around them, finding the grace to forgive themselves and the grace to forgive “life” for the way it’s come to them.
Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly!”
Life, as God created it – loving one another with grace and kindness, sympathy and gentleness, mercy and comfort.
In a voice over comment about Edward, Carter says: “I know that when he died his eyes were closed, and his heart was open.”
