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The Spent Dandelion offers guests hospitality on several fronts: a four-season studio apartment overlooking our 20 acres of North Shore woods; our large garden and orchard—and its harvests; a 4,000+ theological library for your perusal and use; private consultations with Anna, a trained pastor and theologian, to explore and deepen your faith and religious curiosity; and proximity to the glorious woods, lakes, trails, restaurants, and artisans dotting the towns along Lake Superior.

All, of course, are welcome!

Retreat

Our private studio apartment offers thoroughly indulgent full and queen beds, as well as couch beyond cushy (all of which have been reasons alone for people to return); a three-quarter bath; a stocked kitchenette; free wi-fi; a desk and printer for your working needs; a quiet deck overlooking the woods; and the occasional bear sighting and howl of a coyote, wolf, or hoot of an owl.

Whether you come as a rostered leader to steward your professional Continuing Education; or reserve a few days as a lay person so that you can attend to a question about theology or your religious beliefs; perhaps as either, you perceive a pull to deepen your faith and discover its relevance; maybe you want to engage in focused reading, writing, and studying; or simply yearn to breathe clean and quiet and woodsy air; the Spent Dandelion welcomes you, and hopes to send you back with clarity, calm, and courage to enter the claims and fray of life again.

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Reflect

What do you get when you combine the libraries of a New Testament theologian-father, a systematic theologian-daughter, and generous donations from people near and far? A happily lost afternoon of book perusal. Covering biblical studies, systematics, ancient and modern languages, feminist and womanist theologies, liberation theologies, mujerista and minjung theologies, queer theologies, Church history, world religions, ethics, psychology, neurology, society, creation care, social justice, philosophy, politics, these 4,000 + volumes will tempt you to pull up a seat and expand your mind. Check them out in advance here (with more being added to the count weekly) and even find your selections waiting for you in the apartment when you arrive.

[Covid note: although the pandemic has prevented us from welcoming people into our home as we did pre-Covid, we are still eager to find ways of getting books into the hands of our guests. David and Anna are even actively seeking new places at 808 to house the shelves, so that anyone can have access to a new tome and a new thought!]

Restore

Regardless of this place's pull to you, the Spent Dandelion promises to do all it can to attend to your hopes and plans for your time here, so that refreshed, you can return more centered and energized to the spot you call home and the people whom you love.

What We Offer

Story

Anna Madsen is a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and serves as a freelance theologian in Two Harbors, MN. After serving a small congregation in South Dakota, she and her late husband moved to Regensburg, Germany for five years. There she earned a PhD. in Systematic Theology, studying especially God's presence in suffering. Since then, she's experienced her own share of radical hurt and radical hope, each of which has transformed her world, her perspectives, her theology, and her openness to the messy questions.

Taken all together, they are the very roots of the Spent Dandelion Theological Retreat Center.

Anna lives with her husband David Willis, a man who is nothing if not generous in every way, and who surprised and surprises her each day with new love and new life.

They live with Anna’s son Karl, a resilient and joyful young man who, when a very small child, suffered a traumatic brain injury, but in spite and to spite that TBI lives a life of love and mischief.

They miss daughter and sister Else, a wise, compassionate, buoyant and brilliant second year student at St. Olaf, along with David’s four adult children who, though scattered about, grace David, Anna, and the world with their presence.

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