Sam Brown & Kate Holbrook
FRIDAY | APRIL 10, 2020 | 7:30-9:30 pm
This could be a Holy Week like no other. For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will be joining much of the Christian world and fasting on Good Friday. The current pandemic is offering us unique opportunities to hear Christ. Join us as we explore what we are hearing.
GATHERING AT:
Your home or hang out of choice via Zoom.
Thanks to quite a number of kind souls who have professional Zoom accounts and who offered to host. My good friend Jana Spangler was the first one to respond and I was delighted to take her up on it. Thanks Jana! Below I will list some helpful info for being part of a Zoom convo to help make it a great experience for all. Please take the time to read even if you’ve done Zoom before.
Use this link and password to join the Zoom Conversation:
https://zoom.us/j/535539747?pwd=VlR3Mng1NDNuRHlIUHZVWWlkV1hSQT09
Meeting ID: 535 539 747
Password: See the last ThinkAgain.FaithAgain email sent.
If you are just joining by voice phone only, see details at bottom of page.
While I expect a big crowd there will be no need to bring a light folding chair this time. And rather than refreshments afterward, you’re invited to fast with much of Christendom. It is an important time to reflect on our blessings and how we can share what we’ve been given as well mourn with those who are mourning.
THE CONVERSATION:
I can’t think of anyone better to lead this conversation than Sam Brown and his wife Kate Holbrook. Several years ago I had them individually lead separate Faith Again’s. I was reluctant to reach out to Sam because he is a shock/trauma doctor and I expected that he would be even busier than usual. And he is. But despite his current 6 day work week of 16-18 hours a day, he said yes. And despite Kate’s demanding job as a historian, writer, and the managing historian of women’s history for the Latter-Day Saint history department, she too said yes. And they are the parents of 3 daughters stuck at home too! These are good folks, folks.
So the conversation I posed to Sam and Kate is this: How is the current pandemic affecting our hearing? Specifically our hearing Christ’s call. How are we hearing Him and do we feel He is hearing us? Especially framed as it is, during this current Holy Week, where much of Christianity is considering in a deep way the suffering and crucifixion of Christ. And The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, for the first time, is fasting on Good Friday with the majority of religiously active Christians.
I’ve been wondering as of late, about all this in terms of the painful theme found both in the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane—”Is there no other way?” Despite our yearning to avoid suffering and the divine admonition to mourn with and help those who suffer as well as seek to prevent suffering, suffering seems inescapable as well as indispensable to our earthly and eternal progression. How does this affect how we hear and respond to Him?
After Sam and Kate share some of their reflections on this theme, we will break into smaller virtual groups and everyone who wishes to will have the opportunity to share up to 90 seconds worth of your experience or thought on our topic. (So have your phone out and time yourself please). We’ll then come back around to the larger group and share as we have time.
ABOUT SAM AND KATE
Samuel Brown, MD, MS graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in Linguistics with a minor in Russian, then received his MD from Harvard Medical School, where he was a National Scholar and Massachusetts Medical Society Scholar. After graduation he completed residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he remained on faculty as an Instructor in General Medicine at Harvard Medical School before moving to the University of Utah, where he completed fellowship training. He is now Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of Utah, based clinically at the Shock Trauma ICU at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City.
Dr. Brown studies, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the clinical epidemiology of life-threatening infections, with a special emphasis on patterns in cardiovascular function as indicators of disease severity and responsiveness and patient-relevant outcomes after critical illness. His research incorporates ultrasound images of the heart and complex analysis of heart rate and blood pressure signals in the interest of understanding better how to prevent death from life-threatening infections. Dr. Brown also merges quantitative and qualitative/humanistic approaches to making medicine human through the Center for Humanizing Critical Care, which he founded and directs at Intermountain. Avocationally, he studies cultural history, with a particular emphasis on how religious ideas assist believers in coming to terms with embodiment, sickness, and death. He has published widely in both medicine and history.
Kate Holbrook, PhD is a leading voice in the study of Mormon women and Mormon foodways. As the first managing historian of women’s history at the LDS Church History Department, she writes, studies, and interprets history full-time. Her major research interests are religion, gender, and food.
A popular public speaker, Kate was voted Harvard College’s Teaching Fellow of the Year for her work as head teaching fellow in a course that enrolled nearly six hundred students, and she co-edited Global Values 101: A Short Course (Beacon Press, 2006), based on that class. In 2012, Kate co-organized a conference entitled “Women and the LDS Church: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” She and her co-organizer, Matthew Bowman, have edited a collection of essays that sprang from this conference entitled Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Kate has also published essays and book chapters about Mormonism and housework, Nation of Islam Muslims, Mormons and food, religion and sexuality, and . . . religious hunting rituals.
Kate grew up at the feet of the Rocky Mountains and is happy to live there again, among the historic sites, cultural currents, and food environments where her scholarship has its roots. She has a BA in English and Russian literature from Brigham Young University, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. For her dissertation work on LDS and Nation of Islam foodways, she was the first recipient of the Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah.
EXPLORE BEFORE WE MEET:
Bob Rees, Dialogue, Why Mormons Should Celebrate Holy Week
None Were with Him, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified
Podcast: Samuel Brown on In Heaven as It Is on Earth and “Believing Adoption”
Podcast: Consecrating a Crisis – Thomas McConkie
Readings for Passion Week: The Final Days of the Savior’s Life
Pope Francis approves new ‘Mass in Time of Pandemic’ and Good Friday coronavirus intention
Podcast: Unbelievable? Peter J Williams and Bart Ehrman – Are the Gospels historically reliable?
ZOOM RECORDING OF THIS FAITH AGAIN:
https://zoom.us/rec/share/5JRzKrHM33NIZY3QxGOGZ4ATGoWiX6a81HcerKFezkwxBI1BENgJzWUw_mu84QC_
Access Password: V9iV1m
TIPS FOR BETTER ZOOMING
Before you begin the Zoom Conversation:
- Prior to when we meet, get your camera and mic ready and troubleshoot any problems. It would be wise to do a dry run with the camera and microphone on your device before we converse. Best to have the camera at eye level so that it is as if we would talk to each other in person. You can use a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.
- If you are having difficulty with the technology, don’t hold up the meeting by distracting other participants for solutions. Try Googling your problem. I do that with most of my life’s problems.
- Find a quiet place to get comfortable and that you can hang out in for a couple of hours.
- Be aware that the rest of the group can see you and what is behind you. Avoid having bright lights, distracting images, or people or pets wandering around behind you. No Bigfoot bombing in the background please.
- Please don’t wander around doing other things. This is not General Conference, it’s a CONVERSATION.
- And don’t pick your nose. Besides, we aren’t supposed to be touching our faces anyway right now.
- Mute your microphone when you are not speaking so noises are not heard by everyone else
- Resist the urge to multitask—be with us people. Knitting is still allowed though.
- Please share air time and follow the guidelines under “Intentions” on this website.
To enter the Zoom conversation:
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