Pilgrim House

The Glad Hatter – Pati Kachel, a local story teller, will share with us her collection of vintage hats. As she puts them on, she magically becomes the colorful characters who once wore them. You’re invited to wear a hat and share a story too! Pati inspires listeners through stories and programs about life. She entertains audiences in churches, retreat centers, schools, libraries, hospitals, coffee shops, prisons, and bookstores. She has traveled from Pittsburgh to Seattle presenting her story programs and songs.

June 2 – Flower Communion followed by the Annual Meeting

Bring a flower from your garden for our traditional Flower Communion program. To keep that day moving we will move acknowledgments and thanks you’s over lunch (Taco bar and beverages provided by the Board; pot luck items provided by everyone else) followed by the Annual Meeting.

May 19 – Songs and Stories of the North Wood with Doug Wood

Doug Wood, the author of Old Turtle and other children and adult books is an annual favorite at Pilgrim house and he returned with the Wild Spirit band to entertain and enlighten us.

May 12 – Ralph Reeder Community Support Center

Laurie Lindblad is the community social worker with the Ralph Reeder Community Support Center, where her role is to build capacity, connection and collaboration in order to support at-risk and vulnerable individuals and families within our community. Previously, she was Director of Family & School Success at The Family Partnership in Minneapolis. She has a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Denmark, where she held a number of social work positions. Laurie has over 20 years of social service experience, including directing infant, preschool and school-age childcare programs, working with children with mental health needs and their families, providing refugee counseling services, and developing and directing a number of family and community support programs.

May 5 – From Choice to Justice: Our Spiritual Work 40 Years After Roe

Labels are polarizing and do not help us build or strengthen our movement for reproductive health, rights & justice. We will explore the Unitarian Universalists' current Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI) & how we can increase our conversational capacity in this ongoing work that is pastoral, prophetic, and progressive.

Rev. Kelli Clement is the Executive Director of the MN Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. A Unitarian Universalist community minister in affiliation with First Universalist Church, she is a graduate of United Theological Seminary where she was the coordinator of Seminarians for Choice, and is a part of the national speakers bureau of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project. When her family was living in the Netherlands last year, Kelli was privileged to speak at UU congregations in Amsterdam, Basel, Brussels, Paris, and rural Germany. Kelli lives with husband Mike (whom she met at a pro-choice rally!), daughter Fia, and poodle Memphis near Lake Nokomis in south Minneapolis.

April 28 – Creativity and Innovation Presented by Louis Asher

A fun-filled, interactive and thought-provoking presentation. Attendees will be gently challenged to use their creative abilities in ways that lead to innovative and fun solutions. Real-life creative and innovative problem-solving examples will be discussed. The talk will feature a number of interactive activities.

"If at first an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

April 21 – How a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer is Saving the Land, and the Lake

When it comes down to it, most of the land and water that is important to conservation is in private ownership. The Minnesota Land Trust will present the story of how one landowner’s decision to NOT develop his property is inspiring people to rethink the real value of land. The Minnesota Land Trust is a non-profit conservation organization dedicated to preserving our state’s natural and scenic heritage. http://www.mnland.org Presented by Barbara LaMotte, Marketing & Membership Manager, Minnesota Land Trust.

April 14 – Hand Me Down My Walking Cane with Author Carla Hagen

I have always been intrigued by lost things: people, places, cultures, as well as lost causes. That was why I felt compelled to write the first fictionalized account of the small communities in my home county, Lake of the Woods, who had been forcibly relocated during the Great Depression. Although the settlers were offered low-interest loans for more desirable farmland, most of them preferred their hardscrabble life in villages built on peat bogs and jack pine sand ridges where they were free to poach deer, grow their food and live their lived free of any mayor, police or clergy. They resisted the move, sponsored by the Resettlement Administration or RA (later the Farm Security Administration or FSA), and that resistance became legend in the borderland where I grew up. Hand Me Down My Walking Cane is their story. The relocation ties these characters together in ways they could never have foreseen as it changes the life and the landscape of the forest villages. My talk will focus on the story and the significance of the relocation in the turbulent, troubled 1930s.

April 7 Brief History of the Soul with Professor Charles Taliaferro

Charles Taliaferro is a Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. He is the author or co-author of twenty books including A Brief History of the Soul. Taliaferro has been a visiting scholar at Oxford, Princeton, NYU, and Columbia, He has given lectures at Oxford, Cambridge, University of St. Andrews (Scotland), Yale, NYU, University of Chicago, the Gregorian (Rome), University of Beijing (China), and elsewhere.

March 31 – Spring Celebration

We will be conducting our traditional Spring Celebration with people from the fellowship sharing their talents. The children will depart for a special activity mid-program. We will schedule children’s early and adults later in the program. If you or your children have a talent – music, dance, spoken word – that you would like to share: contact Lollie Jensen or Mel Aanerud.

A potluck spring brunch will follow the program, coordinated by Katrina Edenfeld. All are invited.

March 24 – What’s New at the U: The Impact of the University and the Role it Plays in Helping to Advance MN as a State

Mary Kay Delvo, director of advocacy, University of Minnesota Alumni Association presents this program. Representatives from the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Alumni Association went on a road trip, visiting 13 cities in 12 weeks. The purpose of this "road show" was to inform Minnesotans around the state about the importance of University education, research, and outreach to their communities. Have you ever attended a cultural or sports event at the U, ever eaten a Honeycrisp apple or puffed wheat cereal, ever worn a seatbelt? The reach and impact of the U is felt across the entire state, even for those who have never set foot on campus or don’t have a diploma.