Life Plans

Ten years ago I made a life plan. Really, more of a to-do list of things I expected to do by the time I reached 31. It was part of a spiritual retreat my college campus ministry did in April 2005, and I came across this list the other day. (It’s the same list from which I pulled my “FiveYear Plan” that I blogged about…five years ago.) The 10 year plan reads as follows: 

• have kids and/or be having kids 
• be upper level management with a recreation department 
• definitely owning a home 
• $70K/year income (???) 
• visit Africa 
• have knee surgery

Those of you who know me will be able to tell which of those can be crossed off. But we’ll get back to assessing the list later.

Last Saturday two people knocked on my door, obviously from some local religious institution although I couldn’t tell you where. They were a pleasant couple who didn’t ask if I’d “found Jesus” (as though he were lost!) but who simply invited me to the “worldwide celebration of the remembrance of Jesus’ death next Friday.” (Their words.) They gave me a little track that told about the trial and death of Jesus and had some facts and figures about how we’re all sinners and Jesus died to save us from certain doom. I thanked them, because let’s face it, even though I deeply disagree with their theology and even question their practice, I’m certainly not the one ringing doorbells at 9:00am on a Saturday to speak about the power of my convictions. I’ll give them their props there. I told them I was already involved in a church, but thanks anyway and have a nice day.

It wasn’t until days later that I was able to articulate my theological discomfort with the emphasis of remembering Jesus death. Sure, Good Friday is an important day in the Christian calendar, but the information they gave me—and other encounters I’ve had recently and in the past—said nothing about the Resurrection. They don’t mention Jesus coming back. For me this is odd at best and disturbing at worst because, quite frankly, Friday doesn’t mean anything without Sunday. Death doesn’t mean anything without Resurrection.

It doesn’t take anyone special to die. Anyone can do it; in fact, we all do. No one gets out of this alive. It didn’t take a special divine act to nail a guy to a cross. It didn’t take an act of God to have him die, either. The important part of the story is that Jesus didn’t stay dead. Now that’s a nifty trick. That would take something special, something unique, something…divine. Everyone dies, but not everyone refuses to stay dead.

And maybe, if you stretch it, the real miracle is not only that Jesus was willing to die but that he was also willing to come back. People say death is scary. Death isn’t scary, it’s pretty straight forward: you cease to be as you once were. Life, however, is frickin’ terrifying. Life is wildly unpredictable and full of challenge and change and turmoil; it’s painful and seemingly random and no one’s in nearly as much control as they think. But life is also spontaneous and full of opportunity and growth and joy; it’s beautiful and vast.

It doesn’t take much to believe Jesus died. It takes a lot to believe he didn’t stay dead but instead chose to come back to this mess of a life.

Which gets me back to my ten year plan. I haven’t done a thing on there. For some of this I’m grateful (managed to not have knee surgery,) for some I’m not (I really would like to own my own home,) and for some I’m comfortable still waiting (I’m happy borrowing my friends’ kids when my maternal instincts kick in.) Quite honestly, it would be easy to die to the despair of having done jack-all of what I thought I would do; to wallow in the misery of lost chances and forgotten dreams. It wouldn’t take anything special. But this is all life. It’s been messy and painful and wildly unpredictable, but it’s also been joyful and fun and beautiful.

No, I haven’t done a thing on my “to-do list,” but I’ve done some other fantastic things I never dreamed to put on there in the first place.

So yeah, Jesus died. But he also came back to life, and back to live. So I haven’t done any of what’s on my ten year plan, so what? I’ve done more. And this is life. I’ll keep coming back as long as I can and see where it takes me.