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Antaeus and I

Antaeus and I

Last updated on: October 9, 2025 at 8:58 pm by Dan Peterson

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Antaeus and I 2025-10-09T20:58:54-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A photograph, by my wife, of a sunset at Corona del Mar

Here’s a curious voice out of Wyoming. Not likely to tumble into the baptismal font anytime soon, but still admiring in this one respect: “My Mormon manifesto: In the wake of a deadly attack on a Michigan church, one Latter-day Saint’s particularly noble act of grace deserves our attention.”

And here is a very good piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy from Dr. Eboo Patel, an American Ismaili Muslim, an important writer, and a prominent figure in current interfaith relations: “The Church Americans Often Mock Could Teach Us to Heal: After the Kirk assassination in Utah and the attack on a Mormon church, the Mormon commitment to serving others emerges as a powerful answer to hate, division, and violence.”

I like this comment, which I saw posted on a BYU athletics site nearly two weeks ago:

Walking out after the game and a Colorado fan was making fun of BYU fans forhaving to go home and celebrate the victory with a nice glass of water.

Would rather celebrate a victory with a cool glass of water than be drowning my sorrows in alcohol after a loss. Cheers, Colorado fans.

Francisco de Zurbarán, “Hércules luchando con Anteo” (“Hercules Fighting with Antaeus,” 1634). Wikimedia Commons public domain image

Except for my mission to German-speaking Switzerland, I don’t believe that I’ve ever gone for an entire calendar year without spending at least a few days in my native California. Even when we were living in Egypt, we came back at least once annually. I typically spent summers working for the family construction business. One year, I feared that I wouldn’t keep my record up, so I began thinking of making a trip over to the state line somewhere, with the intent of at least sticking my toe across the border. Happily, though, a real purpose arose for making a stop in the Golden State, so my record remained intact.

In this connection, I’ve thought sometimes of Antaeus, in Greek mythology the son of Poseidon and Gaia. His name, Ἀνταῖος (Antaîos), means “opponent,” and he was famed as a wrestler. His practice was to challenge everybody who passed by him to a wrestling match, knowing that he was invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth. Since, in Greek wrestling, as in modern wrestling, the goal was to pin an opponent to the ground, Antaeus always won. He would kill his opponents, and he had eventually slain so many of them that he built a temple to his father, Poseidon, with their skulls. In the end, though, Hercules defeated him by crushing him while holding him up off of the ground.

Like Antaeus, if only in this respect, I try to touch my native California soil at least once each year.

We flew down on Tuesday afternoon with a single friend to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. Since our lodgings weren’t quite available yet, we headed straight to the Crystal Cove Shake Shack on the Pacific Coast Highway where we had a late lunch and gazed westward over the mighty Pacific Ocean. Doing so checked one of the boxes on my list of traditions: I enjoyed a date shake, as I’ve been doing there since I was a little boy when we would drive down to visit my father’s brother and his sister in San Diego County.

That evening, we watch the funeral service for President Russell M. Nelson, which we really enjoyed. (Enjoyed seems an odd word, but it fits.). If you were unable to watch the funeral but would like to do so, it’s still available online.

On Wednesday, we checked another of the boxes on my list by having lunch nearby at Roger’s Gardens. The restaurant there, the Farmhouse, is a much more recent tradition for me, but it’s the closest I actually come to actually being the foodie that my critics imagine me to be. The outdoor atmosphere is great, and the food is fresh and utterly unique; the big surprise for me this time was the braised greens enchiladas, meatless, beanless and delicious. Be warned, though: You will probably need a reservation to eat at the Farmhouse, and preferably several days (or weeks) in advance.

On Wednesday night, we watched Cabrini, which was distributed by Angel Studios. I’ve been wanting to see it for quite a while, having missed it when it was in theaters. I enjoyed it, and consider it time well spent.

My wife and our friend participated in a session at the Newport Beach California Temple this afternoon. I had hoped to go to the temple myself today, but I had an online meeting that directly conflicted with the temple reservation.

The Newport Beach California Temple is just a few minutes away from where we’re staying, but, alas, I was unable to attend this time around. (LDS.org)

From the Chicago Maroon, an independent newspaper at the University of Chicago: “Former UChicago Law Professor to Be Named Head of Mormon Church: Dallin Oaks (J.D. ’57) chaired a disciplinary committee during a turbulent period of anti-war protests at the University.”

The article provides us, I think, with a foreshadowing of the news coverage that President Oaks will receive if, as expected, he is formally named the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — which, I now suspect, will occur on Sunday, with the public announcement being given out on Monday. (Of course, the reorganization of the First Presidency may have occurred during the General Authorities’ regular Thursday temple meeting, with an announcement coming tomorrow.)

As I’ve already said, I anticipate that much attention will be focused on his supposed antagonism toward homosexuals, and that distorted accounts of aversion therapy for homosexuality at Brigham Young University during his 1971-1980 tenure as the University’s president will feature heavily in media coverage. (The Chicago Maroon article to which I link above raises that issue.) Accordingly, one more time, I share three items that will help to accurately understand and explain the matter:

“Aversion Therapy at BYU” (a relatively short but quite useful article from FAIR)
“Aversion Therapy for Homosexuality in Scientific Historical Context” (a much longer and rather comprehensive treatment, also from FAIR)
“Gay Conversion Therapy and BYU” (a very useful compilation of materials, with a timeline, from Mormonr)

Posted from Newport Beach, California

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