Changing the World Through the Eyes of Visionaries: The Moon Lecture Series

Here is a list of speakers, with a short bio:

Saturday, August 7, 2010, author/activist Anne Lamott– Lamott is the author of seven novels, including Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and her latest, Imperfect Birds. She also explores the backroads and byways of her Christian faith in four best-selling narrative non-fiction titles like Operating Instructions, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has just been inducted into the California State Hall of Fame.

Saturday, September 11, 2010, Father Gregory Boyle, S. J., the founder of LA's Homeboy Industries–Bringing rival gang members together to work in harmony under one umbrella, Homeboy Industries is recognized as the largest gang intervention program in the county, and has become a national model. As Executive Director of Homeboy Industries and an acknowledged expert on gangs and intervention approaches, Fr. Boyle is a nationally renowned speaker. He has given commencement addresses at several prestigious universities, as well as spoken at conferences for teachers, social workers, criminal justice workers and others about the importance of adult attention, guidance and unconditional love in preventing youth from joining gangs. Fr. Greg and several “homies” were featured speakers at the White House Conference on Youth in 2005 at the personal invitation of Mrs. George Bush. Fr. Greg is also a consultant to youth service and governmental agencies, policy-makers and employers.

Friday, October 22, 2010, activist/author Father John Dear, S.J.–John Dear is an internationally known voice for peace and non-violence. He is the author of 25 books, including his autobiography, A Persistent Peace. In 2008, John was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He has serves as the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the United States. He co-founded Pax Christi New Mexico, and works on a non-violent campaign to disarm Los Alamos. Father John's peace work has taken him to El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Middle East, Columbia, Northern Ireland, and the Philippines. He has been arrested over seventy-five times in acts of non-violent civil disobedience for peace, and has organized hundreds of demonstrations against war and nuclear weapons at military bases around the country, as well as worked with Mother Theresa and others to stop the death penalty.

Friday, November 26, 2010, Twesigye Jackson Kaguri, Executive Director of the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in Uganda–Twesigye Jackson Kaguri and his wife, Beronda, founders of the Nyaka School for Orphans have shown that we can all make a difference. The Nyaka School for Orphans was established purposely because of the plight of orphans in the village of Nyakagyezi in Uganda, East Africa. It was founded in order to accommodate, feed, educate and inspire the hundreds of children in that area of Uganda whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS, and left them in the hands of many helpless grandparents. Twesigye Jackson Kaguri was born and raised in southwestern Uganda in Nyakagyezi village, Kambuga currently in Kanungu District where he went to school. He joined Columbia University in New York as a visiting scholar, studying human rights, started a human right organization in Uganda and later a school for HIV/AIDS orphans. He has written a book about the school, The Price of Stones: Building a School For My Village.

Saturday, January 22, 2011, Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi–Arun Gandhi spent a significant amount of his childhood with his famous grandfather, and weaves colorful anecdotes of his time with the Mahatma and a powerful message of peace and non-violence. Arun is the author of several books. The first, A Patch of White (1949), is about life in prejudiced South Africa; then, he wrote two books on poverty and politics in India; followed by a compilation of M.K. Gandhi's Wit & Wisdom. He also edited a book of essays on World Without Violence: Can Gandhi’s Vision Become Reality? And, more recently, wrote The Forgotten Woman: The Untold Story of Kastur, the Wife of Mahatma Gandhi, jointly with his late wife Sunanda. Arun shares these lessons all around the world. For the past five years, he has participated in the Renaissance Weekend deliberations with President Clinton and other well-respected Rhodes Scholars. This past year, some of his engagements included speaking at the Chicago Children’s Museum and the Women’s Justice Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He also delivered talks at the Young President’s Organization in Mexico, the Trade Union Leaders’ Meeting in Milan, Italy, as well as the Peace and Justice Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Sometimes, his journeys take him even further. Arun has spoken in Croatia, France, Ireland, Holland, Lithuania, Nicaragua, China, Scotland and Japan.

Friday, February 11, 2011, author and innovative Christian thinker Brian McLaren–Generally regarded as the "father" of the emergent church movement, Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and is among the most innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, leadership, global mission, spiritual formation, worship, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice. McLaren's first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His 2004 release, A Generous Orthodoxy, is a personal confession and has been called a "manifesto" of the emerging church conversation. The conclusion to the A New Kind of Christian trilogy was released in 2005, entitled The Last Word and the Word After That. He is one of five co-authors of Church in the Emerging Culture.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, the real life Sister of Dead Man Walking fame–An autobiographical account of her relationship with convicted murderer Elmo Sonnier and other inmates on death row served as the basis for the feature film and opera Dead Man Walking. In the film, she was portrayed by Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award. Sister Helen Prejean has since ministered to many other inmates on death row and witnessed several more executions. She served as National Chairperson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty from 1993 to 1995. The organization Witness to Innocence, composed of innocent death row survivors who were convicted for crimes they did not commit, started under Sister Helen's own Moratorium Campaign. In 1998, Prejean was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Prejean now bases her work at the Death Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans and spends her time giving talks across the United States and around the world.