The Writings of Kate Holbrook, Part 2
Materials Discussed:
“The Weight of Legacy,” Maxwell Institute Annual Meeting 2020
“Deep in the Sources” Interview with Kate Holbrook, October 2018
"Finding Pasture Together": Remembering Kate Holbrook, November 2022
“The Beings I Love are Creatures,” Kate Holbrook, 2006
“A slice of heaven: What Kate Holbrook taught me about the love of God through food,” August 2022
Discussion:
“When we are consumed with what our legacy says about us, we invite torment into our lives. When legacy matters to us because of what we can do for others, we invite God, purpose, and meaningful achievement into our lives.” Kate Holbrook, “Weight of Legacy”
The above statement gives purpose to our whole life
KH was confident about the importance of food and home; this helps ourselves and others take it more seriously
KH was elegant and kind about her own frustrations with others
From Kate Holbrook’s BYU Women’s Conference talk - May 1, 2020 - Quote from a French philosopher, Simone Weil (pronounced Vey): “All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connection of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth.”
To leave room for more truth to complete the picture or story is a good practice that takes patience
The oppositions and the challenges are the daily battles - Christ has won the war
It’s truly having a celestial mindset
Don’t expect this life to be easy, or we will always be stressed or disappointed—this is how it is supposed to go for us to learn
The physical and spiritual needs - literal food to nourish the physical and the words of Christ to nourish our spirits - KH knew this and practiced a life where Christ was important, and providing food to others brought Christ to them
Rosalynde Welch, who kept feeling promptings to help Kate wrap up her latest book before Kate passed—The first 15 minutes of this interview is the story of how Rosalynde came to help Kate finish the book, Both Things Are True. “Rosalynde Welch on the Writings of Kate Holbrook: Both Things Are True.”
“The beings I love are creatures. They were born to chance. My meeting with them was also by chance. They will die. What they think, do, and say is limited and is a mixture of good and evil. I have to know this with all my soul and not love them the less. I have to imitate God, who infinitely loves finite things, in that they are finite things. We want everything that has a value to be eternal. Now everything which has a value is the product of a meeting, lasts through- out this meeting and ceases when those things which met are separated. . . . Stars and blossoming fruit trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.... The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence—that is beautiful. Why? It projects the soul beyond time. The woman who wishes for a child white as snow and red as blood gets it, but she dies, and the child is given over to a stepmother.” https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V42N01_247.pdf
We know that Jesus's motives do not include economic gain, but this episode reveals that He does not even work according to economic principles—His primary concern is not to determine laws of maximum efficiency. Throughout the Gospels and in the Book of Mormon, Jesus honors the sanctity of the individual soul, and He honors the power of the moment. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V42N01_247.pdf
We can sit with discomfort in the church. For me, the Church is this really beautiful thing, and you can sit with the discomfort until it starts to make sense to you, or you can give up all of this beauty. https://ldswomenproject.com/interview/deep-in-the-sources/
“I remember sitting down with Maureen at one point and saying, “I don’t know how we are going to present this history with its ups and downs as something comprehensible to our women readers. Why do women stay committed to an institution that from time to time disappoints them keenly?” We talked about how faith was an essential principle for women and that their covenants were an anchoring principle, and that’s how we came up with the title Women of Covenant.” The Early Development of Latter-day Saint Women’s History— An Interview with Jill Mulvay Derr by Cherry Bushman Silver
“I agree with Leonard Arrington that there’s nothing to be afraid of in our church history. They were humans. To study them deeply from reliable sources can be a real source of spiritual empowerment and strength. To have a partial knowledge of a few things and not do all of the work of really going back and looking at it in context, that can lead you astray.
If you’re not bothered by it, and you’re not interested in history, then God bless you. Keep doing your ministering, keep doing good work. But if you’re bothered by it enough to leave, or to allow it to create a real rift between you and a sense of the spirit in your everyday life, then I think it’s incumbent on you to do some digging, and to be really smart about the sources that you’re using to help form your opinions. If you’re only reading things from sources that are meant to tear down, then you’re going to end up in a torn-down place.” https://ldswomenproject.com/interview/deep-in-the-sources/