Daniel C. Peterson's Blog

For his 101st, recalling a minor incident with Pres. Nelson

  President Russell M. Nelson entered his 102nd year of mortality today.  Remarkable.  Here are a few links that seem appropriate to the occasion: “Church Releases Photo of President Nelson on the Eve of His 101st Birthday” “President Nelson’s Op-Ed in Time Magazine Hits the Right Note” “As President Nelson turns 101, here’s a look […]

Thoughts on happiness. And on lefse.

  This particular item is probably also to be found — I haven’t looked for it there yet — in the legendary (but not merely mythical) Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:  The Interpreter Foundation Podcast — August 21, 2025: Interpreter Articles and “Are Latter-day Saints Happier?” For the second 21 August 2025 […]

“While the enemy assaileth”

  We attended church this morning here in Seaside.  We weren’t really late, but we ended up sitting toward the back of the cultural hall.  One of those who bore testimony was a former longtime member of the ward who had returned for a visit.  She marveled at the numbers; apparently the chapel has been […]

Undaunted Courage

  We headed to Fort Stevens State Park this morning, where we were able to look at what remains of the Peter Iredale, a four-masted steel ship that ran ashore in 1906 and is now (when the tide is low) one of the most accessible shipwrecks on the West Coast. It has been slowly decaying […]

Voices for dignity, respect, truth, happiness, and Jesus

  If all goes according to current expectation, he will celebrate his 101st birthday next week and, thereby, enter his 102nd year on earth.  And he’s just published a short and simple article in Time Magazine:  “Russell M. Nelson: We All Deserve Dignity and Respect.”  Some, I have little doubt, will mock its simplicity.  But […]

Tempting Fate on the Oregon Coast?

  With our friends, we headed up to Astoria this morning.  It’s the oldest city in the state of Oregon and, in fact, having been founded in 1811, was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains.  Astoria is located on the south shore of the mighty Columbia River, near where the Columbia […]

Hearing from Reeve and Rich themselves

  We drove back from Depoe Bay over to the Portland Airport this morning to pick up friends of ours who had just flown in from Salt Lake City.  Then we drove westward to Seaside, where we and our friends enjoyed dinner out with another pair of Utah friends who are also visiting here, both […]

On the ineptitude of using Green Flake to criticize me

  This went up yesterday on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “The Interpreter Foundation Podcast — August 21, 2025: Wresting the Scriptures.” For the 21 August 2025 episode of the Interpreter Foundation Podcast, Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson, and Martin Tanner discussed the wresting of the scriptures by critics. I continue to draw ignorant (and, […]

Desire, Experience, and the Divine

  This column of mine, which I originally published in the Deseret News for 4 July 2013, seems to me relevant also to our celebration of Labor Day, which is today:  “A day for celebration and remembrance” Driving over to Depoe Bay from Portland, we passed very near McMinnville, and I couldn’t help thinking of […]

“With a fatherly care, and paternal regard”

During the April 1929 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Orson F. Whitney, an exceptionally talented writer and speaker and a senior member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, delivered an address that has been quoted frequently in recent decades by other leaders of the Church and […]