Category: Humanist Community Gatherings

HumanistsMN members and friends celebrated the Winter Solstice in secular style on Dec. 14, 2019. We honored the “reason for the season” with dinner, entertainment, and singing at the festively decorated First Unitarian Society. Big Oil (Marcy Woodruff Hillerson), Big Food (Suzy Bancroft), and Big Auto (Meline Juarez) abducted Father Winter (David Guell) in a “mummers play” written by Audrey Kingstrom. Other cast members included Sonia Aaroe, Suellen Carroll, Heather Hegi, Mary McLeod, Christine Retkwa, Summer Sasarita, Jeff Spencer, and Mitchell Thompson. Erica Klein and David Guell performed solo acts.

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Two climate change activists at our April 2019 chapter meeting promoted electric cars as a key weapon in the fight against climate change. They said that transportation produces by far the biggest percentage of greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota.

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Elizer Darris, who experienced the dehumanization of prison as a juvenile offender, spoke to our March chapter meeting about strategies to “Disrupt, Dismantle, and Destroy” mass incarceration. Darris, now a field organizer for ACLU of Minnesota, was sentenced to life in prison at age 15 but worked to educate himself and successfully fought to get his sentence reversed on appeal. But his experience as an inmate, where “every day you have to fight to preserve your humanity,” continues to inform his work.

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The explosive growth in genetic research and testing is creating a host of ethical and practical concerns, Bonnie LeRoy, professor and director of the Graduate Program of Study in Genetic Counseling at the University of Minnesota, told our February chapter meeting. Things are moving so fast, much of it driven by commercial testing companies, that the medical community is having a hard time keeping up, she said.

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Speakers at our January chapter meeting discussed the evolution of medical cannabis, which is legal in Minnesota, and efforts to legalize recreational marijuana in the state. Stephen Dahmer, chief medical officer of Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of four medical cannabis dispensaries in the state, noted that the medicinal properties of cannabis have been recognized for thousands of years, especially to treat pain.

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A panel at our December 2018 chapter meeting discussed the challenges that people with mental illness face and offered tips for supporting them. Larry Ellis and Humanists of Minnesota member Mick Anderson discussed their experiences with Guild Incorporated, a nonprofit that offers community services to people with mental illness—Larry as a client and Mick as an employee. HofMN member Mary McLeod, whose son has schizophrenia and who volunteers for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota, gave suggestions on how to interact with people with mental illness.

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A panel at our November chapter meeting discussed the challenges of long-term urban and regional planning in our area as the population grows and issues like racial disparities and climate change loom. Moderated by HofMN president Audrey Kingstrom, the panel included LisaBeth Barajas, community development director, Metropolitan Council; Heather Worthington, director of long-range planning, Minneapolis Office of Community Planning and Economic Development; and Lucy Thompson, principal planner, St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development.

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Atheism, humanism, and naturalism are related but different ways of expressing nonbelief in gods and the supernatural, Bill Hart, professor of religious studies at Macalester College, told our October chapter meeting. But Hart has a clear preference for one of them: naturalism. Hart, who described his own evolution from devout Christian to nontheist, is impatient with atheists, saying he wants to know what people are for, not just what they oppose.

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