A Time For Listening: Speaker Series Comes To The Dogwood

A Time For Listening: Speaker Series Comes To The Dogwood
N3 Invites You To Share Your Feedback
​
If there was ever a more important time to expose ourselves to a wide array of differing opinions, innovative ideas, accurate historical references and concepts about ourselves and our world this is it.

Perhaps for more than any other reason than to reacquaint ourselves with the wonderful experience known as listening.

During this Great Divide it has become apparent that listening has been relegated to the back of a rather lengthy bus, given little value and going virtually unpracticed. A lot of folks pretend to want a conversation when what they truly desire is an audience and that was never quite so magnified as in this past year.
​
What’s needed is a return to...

---

...the art of listening and there is no venue more suited to the task like the one coming to the Dogwood over the next three weeks.

The Calvin January Speaker Series is a rare gift to the community and for those of us who have taken advantage of this incredibly inspiring initiative over the years it has been enlightening and educational as well as a thoroughly entertaining way to spend our winter lunchtimes.

Here’s a little teaser of what is coming our way beginning tomorrow…..  free of charge for those who love bargains…. and if you call ahead of time for a mere 5 bucks you can enjoy lunch while you listen. They begin at 12:30 and for more info or to reserve what has consistently been a pretty righteous repast call the Dogwood at 231.924.8885.

Our hope is you not only attend but send your comments, critiques, or even cacophonous remarks to Near North Now ([email protected]) and we will share them with our readership community.

Here are a few snippets from the upcoming speakers on religion, poverty and the issue of race.

Wednesday:

Karin Maag “Why the Reformation Still Matters”

“This anniversary, (500th of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses) and others in the same vein do however raise important questions for Christians, for historians, and for historians who are Christians. For starters, there is a growing problem of lack of awareness of the history of Christianity in contemporary congregations. For many Christians, it seems that the here and now is all that matters. Churches that place a strong emphasis on the centrality of Scripture may help their members learn more about the world of ancient Israel and Roman Judea, but then it seems that there is a massive drop-off of knowledge about any other aspect of Christian history until the current day.”

Thursday:

Matthew Desmond “Poverty and Profit in the American City”

“Exploitation thrives when it comes to the essentials, like housing and food. Most of the 12 million Americans who take out high-interest payday loans do so not to buy luxury items or cover unexpected expenses but to pay the rent or gas bill, buy food, or meet other regular expenses. Payday loans are but one of many financial techniques—from overdraft fees to student loans for for-profit colleges—specifically designed to pull money from the pockets of the poor.46 If the poor pay more for their housing, food, durable goods, and credit, and if they get smaller returns on their educations and mortgages (if they get returns at all), then their incomes are even smaller than they appear. This is fundamentally unfair.” 

Friday:

Mark Charles “Race, Trauma and the Doctrine of Discovery”
​
“The other day I was eating dinner with my wife in Gallup New Mexico a border town to the Navajo reservation. Gallup was recently named ‘Most Patriotic Small Town’ in a nationwide contest. Soon after sitting down I noticed that we were seated at a table directly facing a framed poster of The Declaration of Independence’.

​“The irony almost made me laugh.

“When our server, who was also native, came to the table I asked if I could show him something. I then stood up and pointed out that 30 lines below the quote “All men are created equal”, the Declaration of Independence refers to Natives as ‘merciless Indian savages’

“The irony was that the restaurant was filled with Native customers and employees. And in plain sight a poster on the wall was literally calling us ‘savages’.”

Please attend. My hunch is you’ll be hooked and find a way to make as many as possible.

And please….

Send us your comments.

We want to hear your responses to these thought provoking speakers.

​