Called to Joy: A Christmas Sermon

December 8, 2019December 8, 2019 / Teri / Leave a comment

I might complain (just a little bit) to my pastor friends who serve churches that Christmas, at Monmouth College, comes on December 7^th—which means I have to start listening to Christmas music mid-November to prepare myself and my message. There is no Advent in academia, no expectant season of waiting and spiritual preparation.

This year, though, I’m not complaining. Christmas couldn’t come soon enough.

In my message last year, I prayed to God to save us from the darkness which I described as a nation entrenched in deep, unyielding differences; children separated from their parents at the border; hateful, destructive rhetoric; endless mass shootings; wildfires raging; our environment degrading. Obviously, I’m still praying that prayer.

This year, though, the angels have turned me to joy.

In Luke chapter 2, when the angels proclaim Jesus’ birth as “good news of great joy for all the people”, they do not do so in a time when joy is easy to be found, or to a people whose lives naturally spark joy. The shepherds, whom the angels address, are the poor day laborers, the Unseen, the field workers like those bringing in the harvest here in rural Illinois no matter the weather. As I drive by these field workers in rain, sleet and Halloween snowstorms, with my car heater blaring I think, my blood is not thick enough for that kind of cold; my character’s not strong enough for that kind of work. These workers, I imagine, do not rejoice in the labor, as much as what the labor provides—food, shelter, a livelihood for the family they love.

It is to these—these head-down, hard-working, don’t-stop-to-think-about-your-life-or-your-life-will-overwhelm-you— that the angels call to joy—great joy, in fact; life changing, necessary joy.

The poet Christian Wiman writes that “joy is the only inoculation against the despair to which any sane person is prone, the only antidote to the nihilism that wafts through our intellectual atmosphere like sarin gas.”[1]

I often counsel people who are going through difficult times to intentionally seek joy as they observe the day’s sunset, or listen to their children’s laughter, or receive their spouse’s embrace, or witness a stranger’s random act of kindness. Seek joy, I advise them, not to demean or downplay their darkness but to help them find their way through it. Joy can serve as a buoy when life’s storms overwhelm; moments of joy are stepping-stones through the darkness and despair.

Perhaps you have come here tonight, to Christmas at Monmouth, seeking such an inoculation of joy—a decision the angels would approve of. Because here among the music, and the beauty, and the love and pride we feel for our students who have worked so hard to pull all this off, the world’s problems do not feel so heavy, or so insurmountable.

We need this. We need the good news of a baby born to turn an oppressive human empire on its head; we need the good news that there is a power greater than human greed and immorality; we need the good news that the arc of the universe bends towards justice; we need to hear Luke’s angels proclaim that this Christmas there is good news of great joy for all the people.

We need this joy not only as an inoculation against the darkness and despair but also as a way to resist it.

The poet Jack Gilbert writes:

“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”

Joy resists injustice; joy resists despair and hopelessness; joy resists evil by refusing to acquiesce or accept that darkness is the more powerful reality. The angels call a poor, oppressed people to joy so that they can resist the ruthlessness of their world.

Recently, I was introduced to the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. Mandelstam felt a moral responsibility to write poetry for his people during the Russian Revolution of the 1900’s. When the government demanded poets write patriotic poems to inspire obedience among the working class, Mandelstam resisted. He resisted by writing poetry that evoked a violent, upending kind of joy; the kind of joy that can save you when life is insufferable. Mandelstam also wrote a poem mocking Stalin, which got him arrested, exiled and eventually killed.

In this Russian context, Mandelstam’s poems weren’t written down—they were too momentous, too truthful. He composed in his head while walking the streets of St. Petersburg, reciting his memorized poems to his wife, who memorized them herself and only decades later, after Mandelstam’s death, wrote them down.

Even after he was arrested and exiled to a Russian corrective-labor camp, Mandelstam continued to compose poetry. His health declined. He was starving. The last time he was seen alive he was scavenging for food out of a garbage dump. Mandelstam knew full well that he was about to die. Yet, still he resisted the darkness. The last poem he wrote before his death was this, called “And I Was Alive.”[2]

And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird cherry tree.
It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self-shattering
power,
And it was all aimed at me.

What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?
What is being? What is truth?

Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,
All hover and hammer,
Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.
It is now. It is not.

“Do not be afraid,” the angel declares, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”

Embrace the joy the angels proclaim. Rejoice in the hope God provides.

[1] Joy: 100 Poems, edited by Christian Wiman, Yale University Press, 2017

[2] Read more about Osip Mandelstam in Ilya Kaminsky’s introduction to “Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam” and Christian Wiman’s interview here: https://onbeing.org/poetry/and-i-was-alive/

[Feature Image: Drew Selby]

You are Alive: An Ash Wednesday Sermon

February 11, 2016 / Teri / 3 Comments

What follows is my meditation on Psalm 30 for our Monmouth College Ash Wednesday Service.

I realize I am slow coming to this, but apparently the zombie apocalypse is a thing. My eight-year-old son came home from school the other day and asked, “Mom, where will you go during the zombie apocalypse?” Hmm….can’t say that I had given it much thought. But a quick Google search revealed an actual article by U.S. News and World Report that listed the top five cities to run to in order to survive the zombie apocalypse. (Apparently Boston is the best place to survive. I have no idea why. Maybe zombies don’t like historic walking tours and cream pie.)

Honestly, though, we don’t need a zombie apocalypse to feel like we are being pursued by the walking dead or are about to become one of them ourselves. This past Friday I sat down at my desk to write this sermon and I felt terrible. I’d stayed up too late the night before and maybe I’d had a little too much wine in my glass—which led me to skip my morning workout—which left me feeling foggy and lethargic. I just couldn’t get my wheels turning. I felt like, well—hell.

I know you can relate. I’ve seen you students stumbling to class in the morning—earbuds in, noses to your Smartphones, grunting a hello as you pass by—or sitting in the back of class with a vacant, numbed-out look on your face. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of church folks with that same vacant look sitting in their pews on Sunday morning. We’ve all known our fair share of zombie days.

In our psalm for tonight, the writer gives thanks to God for raising him up from a place called Sheol. Sheol, for the Jews, is the place of the dead—the place all people go when they die (there is no concept of heaven or hell here in the Psalms). Sheol can also be a metaphor, though, for a place of “spiritual death”—a place where we are living, but not really alive. It’s a place of “zombie days” but if we get stuck in Sheol it can become a whole “zombie” way of life.

In her poem, “The Messenger,” Mary Oliver describes her work as “standing still and learning to be astonished.” I love that line. I love it because life is astonishing. But too often we miss it because we just can’t stand still long enough to see it. At a church I served in South Carolina, there was a woman who seemingly had it all. She was smart, funny and beautiful. She had married into a wealthy family and lived in a gorgeous home. She and her husband had four children who were all healthy and super cute. So one would think this woman, I’ll call her Mary, would be living her life astonished—grateful—joy-filled! But Mary never stopped long enough to learn this. Whenever I saw her, she was in constant motion, trying to keep up with her four kids, volunteering for every committee in the church, running errands around town, taking care of everyone—except perhaps herself. It wasn’t that Mary was an unhappy person. She would laugh and joke with others. But underneath that “happy” exterior I always sensed a sadness about Mary—she carried it around her eyes that seldom shone with excitement, or flickered with passion, or burned with curiosity. I reached out to Mary a few times—inviting her to a class on contemplative spiritual practices that I was teaching or to a special retreat for women. I thought if I could get her to slow down and pay attention to herself and to her spiritual well-being that she might somehow come alive. My invitations always caught her attention. I could tell she wanted to accept. I think she knew she needed to accept. But, in the end, she always had a reason to say no. It saddened me to see her living so joylessly.

The psalmist’s soul was headed to Sheol because his foes were dragging him down. His light was about to be extinguished. But into that place of darkness and death, God reached to draw him back up, to turn him away from death and back towards life.

Here, in this turning, lies our hope. Verse 5 has gotten me through many a dark place. “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” These words remind me that, by the grace of God, there is always a new chance, a new day to turn from death and embrace the joy of life, no matter what is happening.

For those of you who know and follow Stephen Colbert, you know that he is a devout Catholic. He speaks openly of his faith on The Late Show. You may not know, though, that this man who is hilariously funny and who has devoted his life to making people laugh, has known the deepest grief. When Colbert was 10-years-old, his father and two of his brothers were killed in a plane crash. The tragedy rocked his family and framed the way Colbert forever viewed life. His mother set the example for him. “She was not bitter” Colbert said in a recent interview. “Broken, yes. Bitter, no. She drew on her faith to understand her suffering in the light of eternity.” So it was this tragic encounter with death that taught Colbert to be grateful for life. On Colbert’s computer he has a sign that reads, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the existence of God.”

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy—yes, joy—comes in the morning. To be clear, joy is not an absence of grief, it is not a denial of suffering, but instead, it is a claiming of life. Joy comes in the morning, at the beginning of a new day because with it comes a deep understanding that we are alive.

Christian Wiman is another poet I love who writes wisely and passionately about life while living with incurable cancer. His writing makes me stand still, as Oliver asks us to do, and learn to be astonished. In light of tonight’s Ash Wednesday service I was particularly struck by a passage where Wiman describes a sand storm in his hometown of West Texas.

“Worse than snow,” he writes, “worse than ice, a bad sandstorm shrinks the world to the slit of your eyes, lifting from the fields an inchoate, creaturely mass that claws at any exposed skin as if the dust remembered what it was, which is what you are—alive, alive—and sought return.”[1]

You might say that tonight, on this Ash Wednesday, when you will receive the ashes on your forehead and hear the liturgical words, “You are dust and to dust you shall return” that we’re kicking up our own sandstorm. The dust will be in the air tonight as if it is trying to remember what it was, even as it reminds you what you are—alive, you are alive! Return to this reality tonight. Live as if you are alive, not dead. Embrace the hope and the joy that is here to rescue all of us from zombie ways of Sheol.

[1] Wiman, Christian, “My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer”, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York), pg. 13.

Following a Star–A Christmas Sermon

December 3, 2014 / Teri / 1 Comment

What follows is my sermon, “Following a Star” from our Monmouth College Christmas Convocation based on Matthew 2:1-12.

a-forest-of-stars-247689

Writing a sermon for me is like following a star that has suddenly risen in the night sky. When I begin this journey, scripture text in hand, I have no idea where I am being led. I have to write my way in, following the thread of inspiration, and carefully guard my spirit so I don’t get distracted.

This is terribly difficult, however, because I have to forget about how badly I want this sermon to go well and how badly I want to offer you something beautiful today. I need to set aside my desires as well as my fears. I have to stop picturing myself preaching in front of our new President and the Dean and all you scary faculty types and all you college students who are so good at looking so bored. I need to meditate in order to free myself from these distractions, and I have to pray and attend to my soul and… I drink a little.

The acclaimed poet William Stafford likened his writer’s journey to following a golden thread. Stafford “believes that whenever you set a detail down in language, it becomes the end of a thread…and every detail—the sound of the lawn mower, the memory of your father’s hands, a crack you once heard in lake ice, [a star observed rising]—will lead you to amazing riches.”[1] The stance for the writer to take, then, is one of being “neutral, ready, susceptible to now. Only the golden thread knows where it is going, and the role for the writer is one of following, not imposing.”[2]

So I began this sermon not by writing, but by observing. And yes, a star. (I walked out into my backyard, laid myself down in the grass and watched and watched…until it began to snow) and I thought about the three men, or three Magi, who chose to follow one particular star in their sky far from Monmouth College. I’ll admit that I find these men attractive. I don’t know why biblical characters are always portrayed as old, gray-bearded, and grizzly. I don’t see why these guys can’t be athletically-built with olive skin and big brown eyes. Three tall drinks of water.

Really, though, I find these three men attractive because they were open to discovery, susceptible to the now, and ready to follow wherever life’s path might lead them….even if that path was unexpected and unconventional.

Post-biblical tradition has given them names: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Interestingly, they weren’t Jewish, so there wasn’t any expectation for them to go and pay homage to the new King of the Jews. They weren’t aware of the Jewish prophecy of where the Messiah would be born. All they had was a star way off in the distance to guide them. And yet, in spite of this, they decide to make the journey. So it didn’t take me long to decide that I wanted to go with them. I mean, who knows what I might discover in such attractive company?

Every new journey is exciting at first. Just remember how you students felt on move-in day of your first year. So what if it was 98 degrees and raining, and your room wasn’t much larger than a small prison cell. College was awesome! Waving goodbye to Mom and Dad and your pesky little brother was liberating! You walk down Broadway for your Freshman walkout, again in 98 degree heat, hot slices of pizza in hand, getting free stuff, following a bunch of bagpipers who I once heard you describe as “totally badass!” I mean, it couldn’t get any better. The possibilities for your college journey were endless. New experiences, new friendships, new love interests, new ideas. It was all just so exciting.

My journey with the Magi began the night I lay in the grass observing the stars. I started to picture myself riding one of those camels and, for the first few miles, chatting with my new companions. They are astrologists, so they enjoy pointing out the different constellations, what they had learned from the night sky, and how they know that the star rising in front of us is the sign of a new king. My mind is racing with all the possibilities for this journey. I wonder who we’ll meet? Or, what kind of wisdom I might glean? Maybe I’ll learn some really cool survival skills out here in the desert and get a really great tan? Here, at the beginning, anything is possible.

As it happens on long journeys, though, the conversation between us eventually lulls. And in the growing silence I become aware of my feet that hurt my lower back that aches and that star—well, it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. Just how long is this journey? I wonder to myself. And when might we take a break?

This point of the journey reminds me of Midterms. All the new excitement has worn off, and suddenly you’re like, “Oh CRAP, college is really HARD!”

When the Boys and I do finally take a break, it is out of necessity. The sun is rising and our star has vanished. We sit down beneath a grove of olive trees and my three companions quickly doze off, but I can’t get comfortable. The arid heat is crawling all over me and my mind won’t let me rest because my Type-A, got-to-have-a-plan-self, is starting to panic. What am I doing here all alone with three strange men? What would my mother think? Or my practical-minded father? I can hear him clearly, “Teri, what’s the point of this whole adventure? Where are you headed with this? What are your goals?” I can’t answer my father’s questions, though, because they are mine as well. I have no idea where I am headed. So I start thinking about quitting and heading home to be somewhere safe and comfortable. Somewhere where I can control my surroundings and my life and leave all this mystery behind.

When journeys get difficult—as they always do—our minds quickly begin to look for alternatives. When my sermon writing is faltering and I am panicking and picturing myself standing up here with absolutely nothing to say, I find myself being tempted by alternative paths. I turn to my husband and ask, “Dan, do you think Farm King is hiring? They have some really cool stuff there. Or Subway? I think I could make sandwiches for the rest of my life.”

Maybe after your first college midterms you started to ponder some alternatives too. So just how much does a stock boy at County Market make? Maybe living with my aging mother when I’m 36 isn’t as terrible as I originally imagined it?

If you’re here today, obviously you didn’t give in to the alternatives. You’re still on the journey and so am I. Not everyone sticks it out, though. For some, it is too tough. So what’s so different about us? Why are we still here? Well, I imagine, that you, like me, are here because we have hope, perhaps even a little bit of faith, in what lies ahead.

Hope is an extraordinary gift. Not everyone is so blessed to have hope. We don’t know what lies ahead. We can’t know. But we hope that it’s something good. So we keep going, even when the going gets really difficult.

The climax of our journey narrative today comes, of course, when my wise friends arrived at the house above which the star had stopped. When our 2-year-old Isaac met his baby sister, Ella, for the first time in the hospital, all he could manage to say, was “This?” “This?” Maybe the wise men had the same question. This is what we have been searching for? This tiny, fragile baby is the King of the Jews? This is the one King Herod is so scared of? Does this make any sense?

But you know how sometimes you know something is right because you feel it is right—even though all rational explanations tell you it is wrong? Well, I imagine that’s what happened here—because these foreigners who had no reasonable connection to this baby, were overwhelmed with joy at finding him. So overwhelmed that they knelt down in homage to him. Something must have clicked within them when they saw this child. Something must have told them that they had come to a place of discovery.

There is no greater joy, no greater feeling of exhilaration than to discover whatever it was that was waiting for you along the golden thread. William Stafford describes it as “amazing riches” and that’s how it feels. It’s the place of epiphany, and of revelation, and of a profound knowing that this was what was meant for you.

So, the moment I discovered what this Christmas sermon was about, I was running on the treadmill at our local YMCA. I’d been journeying with those Magi for a long time—two weeks to be exact. I’d grown weary of their company and was contemplating lots of alternatives when— right in the middle of all these people exercising around me—it came to me. It’s about the discovery! Yes! It’s about the discovery on the journey! And suddenly I feel as if this huge weight has been lifted—because I know now where I am headed. I have at least discovered the direction. And so I start to bounce a little as I run…and I punch the speed button up…and I pick up the pace…and I turn the volume up on my Ipod…and THEN I am still so excited that I start jamming my fists in the air to the music in my ears! And yes, people are looking at me, but I don’t care, because I am feeling so much joy. I am overwhelmed with joy! Thank you, God! Thank you, baby Jesus. I have a Christmas sermon!!!

The sermon itself –like the Wise Men’s journey— is a place of discovery! A place of epiphany! It is such a high!

I hope you’ve known such moments. I hope you’ve known the overwhelming joy of discovery. Maybe it’s happened for you in a class, or a deep conversation with friends, or at a program you attended, when seemingly disparate thoughts and ideas came together in your mind to reveal—suddenly and inexplicably—something NEW about your life, or your future, or your perspective on the world. And then your mind explodes with possibilities and your body flushes with energy because of this new discovery! You discover your life and the world anew! These discoveries, these epiphanies, are what await us all along the journey.

I hope you’ve known such moments, because they remind us that the journey is worth it. They reveal that—as tiny, and fragile, and fearful, and vulnerable, and insignificant as we oftentimes feel—our lives are not meaningless. There is wisdom to be found along this road. There is joy to be found and love and beauty and grace. And—especially at Christmas—we are reminded that God is to be found here as well. God is not removed from us and from all this. God is Emmanuel, God-with-us. God is within each discovery.

So let’s take this moment, this sacred and holy moment, to open ourselves to the journey. This Christmas, let’s begin once again. Let’s follow our stars.

Now to the God who calls us on this sacred journey, be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and power, now and forevermore. Amen.

[1] From Robert Bly’s introduction to Stafford’s selected poems.

[2] Ibid.

Remembering that we are Dust

March 7, 2014 / Teri / Leave a comment

“As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14

Two years ago we received the tragic news that a young alum, Andrew Kuebrich, had been killed in an accident while bicycling the coast of Taiwan. It always hits hard when someone young dies so tragically—mostly because it doesn’t make any sense. Andrew graduated before I came to Monmouth, so I didn’t know him. But after his death, story after story emerged about how encouraging he was of others, how contagious his energy, humor and optimism were, how his kindness touched many. I learned how Andrew had taped a square box on the floor of his dorm room, named it the dance box, and required anyone who stepped in it to dance their stress away. I learned how important the Relay for Life charity event was to him because both his grandmothers had died of cancer.

During one of these events, Andrew raised money for his charity by running 45 miles—in one night! Andrew spent his college summers working with disabled children. He participated in alternative spring break trips building homes for Habitat for Humanity. He traveled to Taiwan after graduation to teach English to Taiwanese children and discover the world. A picture surfaced of Andrew crowd-surfing on the hands of a mob of celebratory college students. I don’t know what they were celebrating, but it certainly seemed like Andrew Kuebrich was a big part of it. He was known here as the Chief of Good Times.

I imagine you know someone like Andrew, someone full of life and charisma and joy. These are the kind of people you imagine living forever—people who are absolutely unstoppable—invincible. Never in our wildest dreams would we believe a young man so full of life could die at 24.

But human life is fragile—a fact we don’t often consider. A parent knows, though. Moms and Dads learn this when their babies are born. Our advances in medicine and technology lead us to believe a healthy birth is a sure thing…until complications arise…. the baby’s heart rate drops unexpectedly, or the chord wraps around her neck…the nurses grow tense, ring the doctor on call, and the parent gets the impression that these risks are par for the course for those who work in labor and delivery. Babies are tiny, fragile, vulnerable little people.

Parents know this as their babies grow, too. I remember negotiating with my parents over a spring break trip to Florida that I really wanted to take with my college roommate. It was our senior year and we planned to drive the whole trip by ourselves, from Michigan to Ft. Lauderdale, without stopping. My parents didn’t want me to go. They asked a lot of questions. To which I responded, “Mom, Dad, why are you so worried? I’m 21! I’m an adult!” As if that meant that nothing at all bad could happen.

Now that I am a parent, though, I know why they were concerned. They were worried because they remember the day I was born. And they remember the day they lost track of me in that giant department store. And the day I fell on the skating rink, cutting my chin open. And they remembered that boy (or those boys) who broke my heart leaving me a sobbing, mush of a mess. They knew (better than I) how tiny, and fragile, and vulnerable I am.

Today, God, too, speaks to us from the parent’s perspective. “As a father has compassion for his children,” Psalm 103 reads, “so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.” “God knows how we were made,” the scripture says. God knows because God was there. From the moment of your birth, God was there. And because God was there at our beginning, God remembers that we are dust. We were created out of the dust of the earth and one day to dust we shall return. In other words, to God we are tiny, fragile, vulnerable little creatures.

The stark honesty of Ash Wednesday’s message—that we can so quickly return to ash—always makes me stop to consider how I have been living my life. This year the word “reckless” comes to my mind. Not that I’ve been bungee jumping, or sky diving, or drag racing through the streets of Monmouth. But reckless in the sense of not paying attention to my life. My life is often such a blur—one long frenetic streak of activity from the moment I wake up at 6:00am to the moment I crash, exhausted, in bed at 10:00pm. If it were not for all my smartly synced calendars, I wouldn’t even know what day it is.

I feel reckless living this way because I, of all people, should remember how close we live to the edge of death. I’ve been around death as a pastor. I’ve stood at the bedside of those who were taking their final, shallow breaths. I’ve laid my hands on cool foreheads to bless those who have just slipped away. I’ve stood in the circle of family members, the holy ground of love, as they said their final goodbyes. Why, then, in light of these experiences and this knowledge, why do I not pay more attention to life? Why do I allow myself to become so frenzied and frantic? Why do I not hug my children more and whisper words that matter to the husband I love dearly? Why don’t I stop more to listen to my own breath and be grateful for the beating of my own heart? Why don’t I, Teri McDowell Ott, remember that I am dust and to dust I shall return?

In the midst of writing this sermon and thinking these thoughts, the voice of Jill Kuebrich, Andrew’s mother, found its way to me. Jill read a sermon of mine on my blog after Andrew’s death and we wrote each other briefly about Andrew and his life, and the impact he had on others. Jill directed me to a blog she had started, a place where she could remember her son and write about her grief. I found myself reading it again this week.

I was moved in particular by a post she wrote for another grieving mother. To this mother Jill writes:

“When you asked me at your son’s wake if it gets easier I truthfully and tearfully told you NO! I regret not lying to you to give you some comfort. You will never miss him less and when you think of what has happened it will be like a sock to the gut every time. But you will see signs of your son everywhere! Take each one and let it put a smile on your face. Try not to let what has happened define and ruin your life. The best tribute I think we can give our sons is to live and love more fully than ever before led by their example!”

Jill’s words resonate with me as a mother of an extraordinary son, and as a child of God trying to make sense of tragedy and the fragility of human life. Jill’s words to me this week felt like the Psalmist’s words. As I read I felt as if she were smearing my forehead with ash….waking me up to the gift that is my life.

After Andrew’s death, Jill and her husband, Matt, discovered a journal he had written full of writings and containing a list of 152 things he wanted to accomplish in his life. He started this list by writing, “Ever since I was a little boy I would always hear older people say I wish I would have. They were looking back and wishing they had the courage to follow through with their dreams. NOT ME. I am creating a list. This is not a bucket list,” Andrew wrote, “this is a TO DO list. This is not a wish I would have done it list. This is a I DID IT list and it was amazing. The main reason I am creating this list is because I feel like most people wander aimlessly through life like a zombie, never breaking through and experiencing life.”

Some of the “To-Do’s” on Andrew’s list included: