Although we really didn’t have time last night – too many urgent things to do – we attended a performance of Puccini’s La bohème. I’m sad to report that Mimi died, once again. Every time we see La bohème, I root for her, hoping that she’ll make it. But she never does. *** We’re watching the situation in Israel with particular interest. We’re scheduled to be there, leading a tour, in about three weeks or so. By then,... Read more
The funeral services for a dear friend, Bianca Palmieri Lisonbee, were held this morning. Last night, too, along with a mutual friend who happened to be visiting from Orlando for meetings connected with BYU’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies (and whom we drove to the airport thereafter), my wife and I attended the viewing for Bianca. It was gratifying to see the large numbers of people who turned out to honor her and, thereby, to honor... Read more
Today is my brother’s birthday. He would have been eighty-one this year, which is very difficult for me to imagine. I’m sorry to say that, more than a few times while he was alive, I completely forgot it until three or four days had passed. No longer, though. Now that it’s too late, I have a pre-programed reminder on my cellphone. (I wish such things had come along a bit earlier.) His widow passed away a few months... Read more
A new article went up at noon today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. It is the Introduction to Volume 58 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: ““Signals of Transcendence,”” written by . . . well, by one Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: Hints of a different and better world — sometimes dimly remembered, often intuited, and commonly hoped for — and of a glorious, mighty power behind the world in which we... Read more
The teaching of the Book of Mormon on resurrection is clear and specific. Here, for example, is Alma 11:43-44: The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time; and we shall be brought to stand before God, knowing even as we know now, and have a bright recollection of all our guilt. Now, this restoration... Read more
“I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Corinthians 14:15) I would like to share a random potpourri of passages that struck me (and that I marked) during my reading of Michael Guillen, Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021). Dr. Guillen, who grew up in East Los Angeles (not too terribly far from where... Read more
With friends, we attended the open house of the newly renovated St. George Utah Temple this morning. I loved it. I loved the fact that the renovation restored the temple to an interior look that its nineteenth-century pioneer builders would have recognized. Renovations and extensions to early temples that were done a generation or two ago often incongruously mixed styles from the period of the modification (say, the 70s) with the original styles. Lately, though, and happily, the... Read more
Over on the Peterson Obsession Board, there is a poster who goes by the pseudonym Everybody’s WC, or something of that sort. One of his odd specialities through the years has been inventing fictions about me that, unless and until he’s called on them, he tries to pass off as true. Among his most egregious lies was claiming to have been an unbelieving bishop who went on one of the tours that I led to Israel in order... Read more
Once again, I invite you to share in the comments favorite moments, talks, or stories from this just-concluded semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — whether from today’s sessions or from yesterday’s. I will share one or two of my own personal favorites. I want to make it clear that that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy all of the talks. I sustain, honor, and revere all of the leaders... Read more
As soon as Elder Bednar opened his remarks this morning, I turned to my wife and predicted that he would cite President J. Reuben Clark’s justly famous 1947 speech “To Them of the Last Wagon.” And indeed he did. (I’ll be available for the signing of autographs for the next week or so.) I loved what he had to say, which I expect will bear the title, when published, of “In the Path of Their Duty,” or something... Read more
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