My dad had a couple of images hanging in his office that I remember vividly. One said “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” The other was a news cartoon with a drawing of a bearded man in sandals carrying a large sign that read “The end is not near. You must learn to cope.” These images and the conversations about them impacted how I responded to many “signs of the last days” lessons and sermons and warnings all through my life.

When I read scriptures from my own and other traditions, this is a topic that has been spoken of in every generation. Cultures all over the world have depictions in their art, and references to this concern in their history in all periods. Pop culture is full of movies, books, graphic novels, cartoons that are created around apocalyptic or last days rhetoric. And this is one of the ways I think humans are so fascinated and caught up in the idea of the end of the world, that we ignore any hopeful or valuable writings about it, in favor of dramatic, hopeless, “whatever happens will happen and there is nothing I can do”, or “I am doing everything right to exactness so I will be fine and I look forward to seeing everyone who is different from me being destroyed” view of end times. Any of these outlooks is an understandable human tendency.

Understandable, but uninspiring.

I remember reading journals and accounts from early Church History, and there were many who were sure Christ would come in their lifetimes. When I was a teenager, many of my friends shared parts of their patriarchal blessings that hinted they would see the Second Coming, or be a part of preparing for it (two very different things, in my opinion). 

This continues now on every level of the church, and in society. Some people who hang on every word from conference seem to have a filter of listening for any word that sounds like a prophecy of impending end times. So when I hear any kind of justification for building so many temples is that Jesus is coming, and we have to get more temple work done before he does, all I can think of is that phrase “Jesus is coming. Look busy!”

Personally, I find value in temple work because of the possible transformative work of symbolic ritual. Linking that to vicarious work for the dead is worthwhile for me because it is an exercise in taking someone’s name with me, speaking it causes this person to become alive for me, and I feel connected to them beyond time and space. I hope that, as their name and existence becomes real to me, and my awareness of them becomes an exercise in love, that possibility is also there for them. I have had undeniable experiences of connection through this practice. It is an exercise in at-one-ment. It is a practice in ritual that I can try to take into life. I don’t believe that anyone who has passed is being held back or restricted in any way because of ritual work that is or is not done in their name. Only a very flawed, human weakness image of god would do that. But there is a lack of education and lessons that could encourage a transformative practice of ritual, and, unfortunately, more effort to see it as a literal, transactional requirement. So the talk of making more temples to increase numbers, or to gut a live session temple in order to make it more efficient seems to suggest that we need to “look busy”. 

There is a purpose to the transactional work that satisfies a need to look busy. And it is very satisfying to turn to a constant work of checking actions off a long to-do list, and feeling as though it will somehow protect us from the disastrous warnings of destruction in an end times deluge described in scriptures and so vividly portrayed in CGI movies. But I can’t find inspiration in putting untold effort and resources into something that is only transactional. This idea that completing the “look busy” to-do list does not have the life-long invitation that the confronting, heart changing, transformational work of God like connection and at-one-ment that Christ invites me to take on. 

Yes, I have found satisfaction in completing tasks that need to be done. And there is always another list to complete, and another work to be done. There is a purpose to that. At some point, I shift from only doing work to get it done (which is fulfilling only at the level of completion), to also taking on the practice of transformation, which is fulfilling in and of the process itself. 

It is work that is always fulfilling, never fulfilled. 

This is not about the doing, or the having. It is about the being. 

This is moving on from the fear about end times. Or the need to appear busy in order to please Jesus at some future date. This is recognizing that rhetoric in every generation about transactional work is a human tendency, trying to satisfy some need to control an outcome of situation that can only be speculated. 

Jesus did not speculate on a future end time. He spoke in present tense. He did not talk of long lists of action items. He did not talk of eliminating anyone or anything through force. He spoke of destroying enemies by loving them and transforming them into friends. His great Sermon on the Mount was not about doing or having. It was about being. He elevated the way of love as the greatest commandment. His parable of the sheep and the goats frames it again as the ultimate transformation that places us in the presence of God. He constantly invites us to take on the practices that transform us to being like God, even as we continue the everyday tasks of existing. Not for some unknown future event, but now, and every day. He does not require us to “look busy”. He asks us to be love, on a level that creates new worlds by transforming this one. 

This is what inspires me. Creating heaven here, and eternal life now. 

There are many references in scriptures of signs of the end times. They all seemed to be about huge events that cannot be controlled or influenced or prevented by human efforts. And many reminders that no one can know when this will happen. I wonder if some people like to feel as though they can figure it out, similar to the satisfaction of being the first to know the outcome of a mystery novel. I remember studying a section in the Doctrine and Covenants that described many disasters preceding the second coming. And there was only one verse that talked about what was required of us in leading up to Christ coming again. Our only task is to overcome evil with good. There is no long to-do list. No required number of temples, or holdings, or tasks. 

Overcome evil with good. That is work that is always fulfilling, never fulfilled. 

What if the Second Coming was not a single event? What if it was a way of being?

Since then, I have looked at the coming of Christ as being a constant possibility in each moment. Each time anyone overcomes evil with good, the transforming love of God is here. 

I love this account from Humans of New York collection, April 4, 2014.

“One day a crazy looking homeless guy came to the door, and we were about to close the door on him, but my mother saw him and shouted: ‘Hey Eugene!’ She knew his name! Then she ran around the kitchen putting all sorts of food into tupperware, and brought it out to him. After he left, we asked my mom why she gave him so much food. She told us: ‘You never know how Jesus is going to look when he shows up.’ She was always saying that– it was a spiritual thing. Then you know what happened? Two months later, that same man showed up on the door step, clean shaven, and wearing a suit. And he had an envelope with money for my mother. ‘Ms. Rosa always believed in me,’ he said. I’ll never forget it! Eugene was his name.”

There is a tendency to dismiss the day to day experiences of Jesus coming into our lives in the form of supposedly small acts of love that overcome despair, hurt, destruction and hopelessness. There is a kind of junk food like addiction to anticipating huge dramatic events in the future and relying on other humans to be responsible for directing us. But each act of advocacy, of comforting or mourning or sharing burdens is what connects us to each other and to God. Each act of taking in the homeless, of feeding the hungry, of visiting the stranger, is doing so to God. It is an act of salvation that creates the world anew.

I turn to a pivotal experience of when I felt despair, betrayal, and the end of my world as I knew it. I stopped turning to all the tasks of doing that were common in my work and service. I just pleaded with God. Help me. Please. Help me. That was when I could hear it, feel it. “I am here. I am with you. No matter where, no matter what. I am with you.” 

There is no dramatic event that could be more powerful for me, more important, more transformative than being present to that. Being aware of God’s constant presence in the world is beyond price.

I think of the other image that was in my dad’s office – “The End is not near. You must learn to cope.” This is not some unpleasant warning. It is a promise. It is an invitation to take on transformative work of creating a new world here and now. 

I try to turn away from relying on the temporary appeal of only focusing on tasks. I don’t think I need to look busy because Jesus is coming. I am inspired by a greater call.

Jesus is here. Be present.