Holy Grounds

If you're religious about your coffee, you're in holy company. If you like your coffee with a bit of inspiration, a hint of humor, and a dose of insight, you'll enjoy pouring a mug full of java and curling up with Holy Grounds. Popular author and avid coffee drinker Tim Schenck brews just the right blend of the personal and historical as he explores the sometimes amusing and often profound intersection between faith and coffee. From the coffee bean's discovery by ninth-century Ethiopian Muslims to being condemned as "Satan's drink" by medieval Christians, to becoming an integral part of Passover in America, coffee has fueled prayer and shaped religious culture for generations. In Holy Grounds, Schenck explores the relationship between coffee and religion, moving from faith-based legends that have become entwined with the history of coffee to personal narrative. He takes readers on a journey through coffee farms in Central America, a pilgrimage to Seattle, coffeehouses in Rome, and a monastic community in Pennsylvania. Along the way, he examines the power of ritual, mocks bad church coffee, introduces readers to the patron saint of coffee, wonders about ethical considerations for today's faith-based coffee lovers, and explores lessons people of faith should learn from coffeehouse culture about building healthy, authentic community.

On the fourteenth day after His perfect enlightenment, Shakyamuni Buddha gave definitive teachings in nine assemblies. In these assemblies, He revealed to advanced Bodhisattvas the hindrance-free dharma realm of the one mind, and gave them the One Vehicle to Buddhahood through the six stages of the Bodhisattva Way. These teachings are contained in the Mahavaipulya Sutra of Buddha Adornment (Buddhavatamsaka-mahavaipulya-sutra), which is revered by Chinese Buddhists as the king of all sutras. Based on texts in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, this book, Rulus fifth, presents the English translations of the teachings in this sutra on the last two stages of the Bodhisattva Way, the Virtual Buddha Ground and the Buddha Ground. The translators introduction summarizes the teachings in this sutra and presents the five theses of the Huayan School of China, which explain that all things in the universe are interconnected and in complete unity. This book will benefit readers at all levels and can serve as a basis for scholarly research.

To intelligently analyze President John F. Kennedy’s murder it would be critical to determine if JFK had made any threats that may contribute to such a serious retaliation. The Warren Commission with its impeccable integrity, surely would rise to the fallen President’s aid and defend the truth, honor, and American values. On November 13, 1963 in the New York Times a caveat was initiated by President Kennedy’s press secretary “the results of a Congressional study of stockpiling would be used by the Administration during the 1964 Presidential campaign” these seemingly innocuous words sent a shock wave of fear through the political status-quo. November 22, 1963 could not come soon enough to head off the political melt down in Washington D.C. JFK intended to create. After decades this story is unearthed it is essential reading to understand this American mystery. John F. Kennedy a President, a man, a father, and human being went to his grave trying to tell this story to the American public. You owe it to him to read the forbidden truth.

Sacred sites offer believers the possibility of communing with the divine and achieving deeper insight into their faith. Yet their spiritual and cultural importance can lead to competition as religious groups seek to exclude rivals from practicing potentially sacrilegious rituals in the hallowed space and wish to assert their own claims. Holy places thus create the potential for military, theological, or political clashes, not only between competing religious groups but also between religious groups and secular actors. In War on Sacred Grounds, Ron E. Hassner investigates the causes and properties of conflicts over sites that are both venerated and contested; he also proposes potential means for managing these disputes. Hassner illustrates a complex and poorly understood political dilemma with accounts of the failures to reach settlement at Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif, leading to the clashes of 2000, and the competing claims of Hindus and Muslims at Ayodhya, which resulted in the destruction of the mosque there in 1992. He also addresses more successful compromises in Jerusalem in 1967 and Mecca in 1979. Sacred sites, he contends, are particularly prone to conflict because they provide valuable resources for both religious and political actors yet cannot be divided. The management of conflicts over sacred sites requires cooperation, Hassner suggests, between political leaders interested in promoting conflict resolution and religious leaders who can shape the meaning and value that sacred places hold for believers. Because a reconfiguration of sacred space requires a confluence of political will, religious authority, and a window of opportunity, it is relatively rare. Drawing on the study of religion and the study of politics in equal measure, Hassner's account offers insight into the often-violent dynamics that come into play at the places where religion and politics collide.

Tilling Sacred Grounds examines Black women’s interiority and negotiation of race, gender, and sexuality in religious spaces and religious practices. Phillis Isabella Sheppard argues for the importance of the exchange between interiority and public spaces, and examines religion in cyberspace, art, ritual, and street ministry. She refigures the location of religious experience by retrieving Black women’s interiority as religious space. Often excluded from Black religious studies, interiority is necessary for understanding Black women’s complex and even unconscious relationship with religion. The book weaves a thread by stressing that interiority has subjective, intersubjective, conscious, unconscious, and relational dimensions formed in historical, and social contexts.

The fourth edition of World Religions in America continues its lauded tradition of providing students with reliable and nuanced information about America's religious diversity, while also reflecting new developments and ideas. Each chapter was updated to reflect important changes and events, and current statistics and information. New features include a timeline of key events and people for each tradition, sidebars on major movements or controversies, personal stories from members of various faiths, a theme-based organization of subjects, more subheads, three new chapters exploring America's increasing religious diversity, and suggestions for further study.

"FOOTSTEPS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD" IS A COMPILATION OF POETIC MESSAGES FROM THE LORD

Glimpses of God are opportunities to recognize, with greater clarity, the presence of God in the various places, people, events, circumstances, objects, and languages of our daily life. I offer them to you as an opportunity to reflect on how much God is a part of your life, and how He has chosen to be in relationship with you, how you have chosen to be in relationship with Him, and how through this relationship, you become one of His greatest Glimpses. They are glimpses because we can miss them if we are not paying attention. If we open our heart to His love, our ears to hear his gentle whisper, our eyes to see His light, our hands to feel His hand in ours, and our feet to walk with Him, then we are growing in our relationship with our God and exuding His presence in a clear and vibrant way. I believe that it is in and through this relationship that we are able to recognize His invitation to be a Glimpse to others on our life. I believe it is then that we see more clearly His presence within ourselves. As we recognize His presence within ourselves, and strive to see it more readily in others, then we grow not only in love with our God, self, and others, we are filled with a deeper peace, a greater joy, and a sense of being beloved. If we are open to sharing these gifts with others, then we too are being a Glimpse of God to those in our family, our neighborhood, our community, our society, our church, our friends, those we encounter on a daily basis and even the stranger.