Dave Matthews likes Jesus, but not dogmatic beliefs about him. He openly wonders about God’s existence while singing of showing love to each other as life’s highest ideal. His songs celebrate making the most of each day’s pleasures because we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, but also caution against overindulgence. His music wrestles with deep questions about identity and mortality, while proposing that upholding others’ worth is one of the most important roles we can fulfill. Wonder and Whiskey is an exploration of the lyrics of Dave Matthews Band as a multilayered call to be present in the moment, both for oneself and others, as well as how these ideas intersect with the highest aspirations of a lived Christian spirituality.

Long considered a place of mystery, the quaint ancient town of Axum, Ethiopia, is a mystical and fascinating place, rumored to house the legendary lost Ark of the Covenant. As two young men travel there on separate pilgrimages, neither has any idea that they will soon find much more than they ever imagined. As his plane lands in Axum, Garret Holcomb cannot help but wonder if he is on a true pilgrimage in search of the lost Covenant or to escape from the emptiness of emotional bankruptcy. His seatmate, Jamaal Abdul Meriweather, wants to be the next Spike Lee and is heading to Axum, where he hopes to film a documentary about the Covenant. After the two realize they have much in common, they pair up to help each other with their missions. But when they eventually meet up with three oracles of an Ethiopian coffeehouse, the holy men soon help them look inward to reflect about lifes most burning issues as well as the personal challenges each has been afraid to face, ultimately revealing a stunning reality for both. In this poignant tale, two young men forced out of their conventional paradigms bravely confront their truths, with help from three oracles of an Ethiopian coffeehouse.

Drawing on the accounts of early European travelers, original Arabic sources on jurisprudence and etiquette, and treatises on coffee from the period, the author recounts the colorful early history of the spread of coffee and the influence of coffeehouses in the medieval Near East. Detailed descriptions of the design, atmosphere, management, and patrons of early coffeehouses make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of coffee and the unique institution of the coffeehouse in urban Muslim society

In this work of interdisciplinary scholarship, Stephen A. Germic reveals how America's first parks, both urban and "wilderness," were created and organized to mitigate the most threatening social and economic crises in the nineteenth century outside of the Civil War. Germic analyzes the intentionally disguised relationship between the constructed "nature" of Central Park, Yosemite, and Yellowstone and the expanding but crisis-prone capitalist state. American Green demonstrates how the fundamental function of these parks was economic and political--in the service of maintaining a consensus regarding national identity. The organization and control of "natural" space, Germic argues, is inseparable from its function as a capitalist instrument. This instrumentalism served not only to define, constitute, and segregate social groups, but also to promote racial and ethnic identifications above those based on class interest. Providing a fresh insight into United States labor, cultural and environmental history, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of American parks and the complex meaning of American public space.

What induced the British to adopt foreign coffee-drinking customs in the seventeenth century? Why did an entirely new social institution, the coffeehouse, emerge as the primary place for consumption of this new drink? In this lively book, Brian Cowan locates the answers to these questions in the particularly British combination of curiosity, commerce, and civil society. Cowan provides the definitive account of the origins of coffee drinking and coffeehouse society, and in so doing he reshapes our understanding of the commercial and consumer revolutions in Britain during the long Stuart century. Britain’s virtuosi, gentlemanly patrons of the arts and sciences, were profoundly interested in things strange and exotic. Cowan explores how such virtuosi spurred initial consumer interest in coffee and invented the social template for the first coffeehouses. As the coffeehouse evolved, rising to take a central role in British commercial and civil society, the virtuosi were also transformed by their own invention.

In this work of interdisciplinary scholarship, Stephen A. Germic reveals how America's first parks, both urban and 'wilderness,' were created and organized to mitigate the most threatening social and economic crises in the nineteenth century outside of the Civil War. Germic analyzes the intentionally disguised relationship between the constructed 'nature' of Central Park, Yosemite, and Yellowstone and the expanding but crisis-prone capitalist state. American Green demonstrates how the fundamental function of these parks was economic and political—in the service of maintaining a consensus regarding national identity. The organization and control of 'natural' space, Germic argues, is inseparable from its function as a capitalist instrument. This instrumentalism served not only to define, constitute, and segregate social groups, but also to promote racial and ethnic identifications above those based on class interest. Providing a fresh insight into United States labor, cultural and environmental history, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of American parks and the complex meaning of American public space.