The Big Question

I volunteered at the Boston Book Festival, yesterday. As a volunteer, I had to wear a bright orange t-shirt with a huge question mark printed on the front, implying that festival goers could come to me with their questions and that I would have the answers. That may have been a little misleading since all of my knowledge about anything outside the room I was assigned to was printed on the programs that everyone got.

At one point, the event in my room was filled to capacity, so many people were being turned away. A couple of girls were among that crowd and since they had a while to kill, now that they couldn’t do what they had been planning on doing, they thought they’d kill a few minutes chatting with me. They commented on the funny question mark and what it implied and we laughed as I joked that, indeed, I did have an answer to every question. The first question they asked, though, caught me off guard.

“What is the meaning of life?” they said.

“To…” I started. I didn’t have an answer ready for that question, which surprised me because I knew the answer. There is a scripture in the Pearl of Great Price that gives that answer very clearly. “For behold,” it reads, “this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). This is the only scripture that I have found that states why God created the world and us, His children, in the first place. He created us to teach us how to live the life He lives: eternal life.

I could have answered this question, but it would have required a full missionary-type lesson, which was out of the question. I gave them a true, but ultimately meaningless answer, and was left to contemplate the question for the rest of that day, and for a big chunk of this day.

I honestly haven’t heard anyone ask what the meaning of life is for a long time. It’s not a question that ever crosses my mind. I think that is because the question is answered, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have to go around wondering what the bigger picture is because I already know what that is.

I don’t know how serious this inquiry was from these girls, but it made me appreciate all the more my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with my knowledge and testimony of its doctrines. So many people have not found a reliable answer to that most basic and fundamental question: “What is the meaning of life?” So many people go about their daily lives wondering if anything they do has any lasting meaning. I don’t know if I would be willing to struggle to find a good job, or strive to find someone I can marry, or even brush my teeth for that matter, if I didn’t believe that my life had greater meaning than what can be found in the present.

Fortunately, because of my faith, I do know that life has a greater meaning. So, I do struggle to find a job in which I can have an influence. I do strive to find that woman with whom I can start a family. I do brush my teeth. Because all of that has meaning. All of that doesn’t just disappear when I die. All of the memories and relationships and habits that I have gained throughout my life will rise with me. All of it, even the minutest detail, has meaning, because God created it that way.