The Girl with The Golden Bucket

From the moment the baby is born, she needs someone out there to lock eyes with her and let her know she is connected and cared for and that she belongs. She needs it desperately—after all, she has just been pushed out of life-giving waters, the warm cocoon that fed her and kept her cozy. To be seen, heard, and held is her birthright.

As she grows, however, her need to be seen and heard is shaped by the ones who raise her. She learns that certain behaviors earn approval while others bring disapproval. Before long, she begins sorting her actions, words, and thoughts into two buckets: a Good Bucket and a Bad Bucket.

It seems that everyone she knows wants big Good Buckets and tiny Bad Buckets. They want the Good Bucket contents to be noticed and applauded, while the yucky Bad Bucket contents are hidden and silenced. She learns quickly that life is about managing buckets.

Then comes her first encounter with Jesus—a tremendous relief.

“Oh!” she thinks. “Now I have someone who can take my Bad Bucket and dump it out. I’m told Jesus emptied all the past and future Bad Buckets so very long ago, so I can arrive in heaven holding only my Good Bucket.”

She is grateful, indeed! She devotes herself to filling her Good Bucket. She attends church, prays, tithes, goes on mission trips, serves her neighbors, and speaks kind words—all with sincerity. She gathers with other Good Bucket People to serve those with Not-So-Good Buckets. As for the Really Bad Bucket People, she keeps her distance, afraid their contents might slosh into her own.

Every now and then she notices a few with no buckets at all. “How sluggish and careless they are,” she thinks. “If Jesus took away their Bad Buckets, why don’t they step into the privilege of the Good Bucket life?”

Her need to be seen and heard fuels her desire to showcase her Good Bucket. By now, it is ornate, trimmed with scalloped gold edges, crafted of solid wood with no leaks.

But over time, her Golden Bucket grows heavy. Carrying it becomes a burden. People expect much from someone with such a beautiful, overflowing bucket. Fear creeps in as she worries this is all for nothing. Surely there must be a reason she bears this weight. So she rationalizes, “This life is a privilege! A blessing given by Jesus to those of us who persist.”

She feels guilty for her doubts and whispers, “Jesus, forgive me for feeling the burden of this bucket. I shall carry it until the very end.” Compared to those still hauling both Good and Bad Buckets, she feels grateful for her privilege.

Yet after a long, long time, she asks herself again:

“Why am I weary of this Golden Bucket?”

“Why don’t I delight in it the way I once did, when it was still light enough to carry?”

At last, she sets it down. She sits beside it and leans back on a sturdy column. She doesn’t know why but something comes over her and she takes her foot and pushes the bucket over.  It spills out its contents and she is not very sad about it. Instead she feels empty, as empty as the empty bucket beside her. 

As the days pass, she remembers the feeling of being warm and well, tucked safely in the waters of her mother’s womb. Oh, how she longs to be back there. Back before her birthright required so much from her. 

The sun bakes her spilled contents, and though tempted to gather them back, she resists. She notices her hands, once so eager to fill the bucket, are now faded and worn like the good deeds she spilled.

But then one day she wonders about the thing she has been leaning on. What has been propping her up all this time? She looks behind her—and realizes it is one of four columns holding up a fountain. Each column is made of polished stone that looks like rose colored quartz and is crowned with a magnificent sapphire bowl brimming with rippling water. At its center, a bubbling sphere spins and lifts skyward, sunlight dancing through its golden spray.

There is an inscription hammered into one of the columns and it reads: 

The Golden Waters of Life are offered from this fountain. Few reach the sphere, for few understand: To drink from it, you must climb its crystal steps with empty hands. Those who become like little children discover the way upward.

So up she climbs with her two free hands. She feels light, like she could float to the top if she wanted to. Standing at the edge of the sapphire rim, she plunges her hands into the crisp, cool water and scoops mouthfuls at a time. 

The more she drinks, the more she is drawn towards the center of the fountain, the deep end from where the sphere bubbles out and upward. Drinking from the source itself, something within her bursts open, radiating through her body—out towards her fingertips to toes and upwards though the crown of her head.

Her eyes, her pores, her very being opens.

She looks out from the top of the fountain at all the people below, and with her big, open eyes she sees them tugging and pulling and hauling. But there is nothing to be tugged or pulled or hauled. There are no buckets. 

The truth is revealed as clearly as the waters she now stands in: those she once called sluggish and careless are the ones who understood that God never asked anyone to carry buckets. 

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭36‬:‭7‬-‭9‬ ‭NRSV‬‬