For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. —1 Thess. 4:16-18, NET

Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians interpret the forgoing scripture to refer to what they call “the Rapture,” in which the righteous (both the living and the dead) will be caught up instantly to meet Jesus in the air. Once there, they will be transformed into immortal beings and taken to heaven with the Lord. Those left behind will experience the tribulation and devastation (foretold in Revelation) reserved for the wicked and unrepentant (including, presumably, all non-faithful Christians and non-Christians, which according to many Evangelicals definitely includes Mormons!).

While the rapture elicits joyful expectation for Christians who believe they will be among those caught up to meet Jesus, those who are unsure if they will be counted among the elect, either because of transgression or lack of faith, are probably more likely to experience anxiety and fear, especially given the chamber of horrors prophesied in Revelation. Emily Dickinson was one of these worriers. When her class at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was asked to rise if they considered themselves Christians, she was the only one who remained seated. She wrote later, “They thought it queer I didn’t rise . . . I thought a lie would be queerer.” It was such experiences that caused her to see herself as “the only Kangaroo among the beauty.”

Dickinson’s spiritual independence was also evident in her own home where she spoke with characteristic ironic humor of her family as “religious [people who] address an eclipse, every morning, whom they call their ‘Father.’” Nevertheless, throughout her life she remained anxious about the state of her soul and uncertain about whether she would rise with the just in the Rapture. The following poem captures her desperation in a moment of spiritual crisis:

At least to pray is left, is left.

O Jesus! in the air

I know not which thy chamber is, —

I ‘m knocking everywhere.

After exhausting every other avenue, she pleads for help as she frantically searches for Jesus. She argues that answering her small prayer should be an easy matter since “Thou stirrest earthquake in the South, / And maelstrom in the sea . . . ” Nevertheless, she has no assurance that he will reveal himself to her “in the air.” Her closing lines are both pleading and accusing (she knew her tone to be irreverent!):

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

Hast thou no arm for me?

I grew up in a family that suffered from tremendous emotional and spiritual dysfunction. When I was fifteen I was the only member of my family active in the Church. I got up on Sunday mornings, dressed, and rode the bus to the Long Beach First Ward. During this time, my older brother (who eventually became a staunch atheist) had a dream about the end of the world in which he saw me rising to meet the Lord. At the last moment, he says he desperately jumped up and grabbed my leg as I rose into the luminous heavens. (I kidded him about kicking him off and leaving him behind!)

Speaking of being left behind, evangelical fiction such as James BeauSeigneur’s The Christ Clone Trilogy and Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ novel series, Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, is full of the horrors that await those who don’t rise with the righteous. But for Latter-day Saints, such apocalyptic events will actually take place before the triumphant Second Coming of Christ, as detailed in D&C 88. It is after the Great and Abominable Church of the Devil is “bound in bundles” that “the saints that are upon the earth, who are alive, shall be quickened and be caught up to meet him. And they who have slept in their graves shall come forth, for their graves shall be opened; and they also shall be caught up to meet him in the midst of the pillar of heaven” (D&C 88:96–97).

As opposed to the Rapture, however, Christ and the righteous will descend to the earth, where they will dwell during the Millennium. Thus, this earth—not some far away heaven—is where Jesus will reign, which should please one of my grandchildren who once told me, “Baba, when it comes time for you to die, we don’t want you to go to heaven; we want you to stay here with us.”

Indeed, it is here where Mormons imagine heaven to be, here with those we love and with Jesus. Robert Frost shares the same sentiment in his poem “Birches,” where he imagines getting “away from earth awhile” by climbing “a birch tree / And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk / Toward heaven. “ But then he continues,

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

For Latter-day Saints, earth is the right place for love, both now and when Christ comes. Living in and with and through love, now and then, is what truly produces a state of spiritual ecstasy—or rapture.