The Moral Bucket List

David Brooks maps the terrain. The Gospel supplies the compass.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Part 1: Humility and the Inner Battle (Items 1 & 2)

“The Moral Bucket List” is an essay by David Brooks first published in the New York Times Op-Ed Section on April 11, 2015. His essay opened with these lines:

“ABOUT once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.”

I remember being struck by how deeply it resonated in me—especially since Brooks is an atheist. Even so I found his moral bucket list full of spiritual longing and a thirst for moral beauty.

Brooks distinguished between two sets of virtues, what he called “résumé virtues” and “eulogy virtues.”

“The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral—whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?”

I found this distinction both truthful and helpful. His moral bucket list is concerned with the six items he believed shaped “eulogy virtues”. Reading his essay through Jesus colored lens, I couldn’t help but see their comparison to the the Gospel. I invite you to explore Brooks’ Moral Bucket List through Jesus colored lens with me in a three-part substack series. This first post will look at Brook’s first two items on his moral bucket list: the humility shift and the inner battle we all face.

“A few years ago I set out to discover how those deeply good people got that way […] I came to the conclusion that wonderful people are made, not born—that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue, built slowly from specific moral and spiritual accomplishments.”

Step 1. The Humility Shift — or, in Christian terms, Repentance and Grace

Brooks writes admiringly about people who have moral depth. One thing they have in common, he says, is that at some point they experienced a — a moment when they came face to face with their own limitations and responded not with despair, but with groundedness.

I couldn’t agree more, moral depth starts through the “humility shift” we Christians call repentance. And unlike the shame-based version that sometimes gets attached to the word, real repentance is liberating. It’s the gateway to grace.

Scripture reminds us that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Christian humility isn’t self-hatred. It’s the clear-eyed, Spirit-enabled realization that we are not the center of the universe. It’s knowing that we are dust and glory, broken and beloved.

“We all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones. But our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light.”

Brooks’ critique of our societal and educational values is spot on. Our culture teaches us to perform, to prove, to polish our online, professional, or academic identities. Thanfully the Gospel invites us to come as we are: needy, dependent, and open to transformation. Brooks sees the power of humility; so do I but through eyes of faith I also see that its source of power is Christ, “who, being in very nature God… humbled himself” (Phil. 2:6-8)

Step 2. Self-Defeat — or, in Christian terms, Dying to Self

The second item on Brooks’ bucket list is self-defeat. He believes that people of strong character have confronted their own flaws. Not once, but over and over. He writes

“Character is built during the confrontation with your own weakness.”

That’s a hard truth. But it echoes Jesus’ own words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). In other words, moral depth doesn’t come from avoiding struggle. It comes through it.

In Anglican liturgy, we pray for “grace to amend our lives.” That’s not the same as gritting our teeth. It’s the grace to die to what is false in us and be raised into what is true. Brooks talks about self-defeat as a kind of moral victory. I agree. But it so much more! Christians see it as participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Brooks’ “The Moral Bucket List” shows us the terrain of the moral life; the Gospel offers a compass and a Savior to walk it with us.

In next week’s post, we’ll explore Brooks’ next two moral milestones: the dependency leap and the energizing power of love. Both resonate strongly with my understanding of life in the Body of Christ. Stay tuned.