merefaith: two friends on pilgrimage

This I didn't know before...

*****

I'm quite a fan of soccer and I always enjoy the World Cup as it comes around every four years. I wouldn't mind one day living in or near a city with an MLS team and supporting it. I had known that the MLS is the successor to the defunct North American Soccer League, which crashed and burned in 1984. The vociferous critics of soccer in America say it crashed and burned because it simply isn't this country's sport. I don't think that has to be the case, and apparently it wasn't merely a failure of popularity in a free market of sports that caused the NASL's demise. Consider this from Parnesh Sharma's opinion piece at The Christian Science Monitor:

In its heyday in the late 1970s, the NASL was a serious presence on the US sports scene. The New York Cosmos, the league's flagship franchise, had little trouble filling Giants Stadium, especially when soccer legend Pele joined the team. The NFL, then not quite the juggernaut it is today, watched this development warily. Aided by a willing media, it began to vilify US soccer.

The media portrayed soccer players as foreign invaders, calling them "commie pansies." Soccer was derided as something for immigrants. Fearful of being perceived as un-American, many immigrants disavowed soccer – the pastime of their homelands – and embraced US sports.

In addition to applying pressure to newspapers, radio and television stations, and advertisers, the NFL also prohibited its owners from owning teams in other sports (an action directed chiefly against the NASL). The NASL sued, but the NFL won in court in 1982. The NASL folded in 1984.

*****

Today, however, the MLS is picking up steam, and multiple ownership is allowed by the NFL. More Americans follow the World Cup and sponsorship is up. Ignore the derision of the isolationists, and viva la real football!

Labels: The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, October 01, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

On Monday night the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Raleigh hosted the one and only Derek Webb, a former vocalist and songwriter for Caedmon's Call who has been going solo for a few years and about 5 or 6 albums. Often introspective and sometimes irascible, Derek has increasingly made it his (at least implicit) goal to shock and provoke his fellow Christians to rethink their understanding of themselves, the Church, politics, etc. Derek gained some measure of notoriety on his first album with what has become by far his most well-known (and arguably most loved) post-Caedmon's song, Wedding Dress. Derek does not shy away from fairly graphic language to contrast the faithful love of God with the fickle response of the Christian:

'Cause I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle, run down the aisle
I'm a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle, run down the aisle
to you.

Derek begins one verse of the song with the words, "So could you love this bastard child?"

The harsh language upset some Christian retailers, but Derek upped the ante against his own evangelical subculture on the album I See Things Upside Down when, in one song, he took his cue from the Song of Solomon and wrote "better than wine is your love" and used the image of drunkenness to describe love.

As if Derek hadn't done enough for some people to pull his albums off the shelves, after coming here to Duke Divinity School to do a concert he was introduced to the theological work of Stanley Hauerwas. Now I'm not sure of all the details of the story or whether Derek's thoughts were moving in a certain direction beforehand, but the influence of Hauerwas was apparently enough to get Derek to take a firm stand in favor of Christian pacifism. Last year he came out with the album Mockingbird, which is at the same time vicious and beautiful, compelling and, for some, exacerbating. Derek pummels the standard consensus thinking of theologically and politically "conservative" evangelicals as he assaults the morality of war, the death penalty, and the status quo that allows some Christians to ignore socioeconomic differences by focusing on the less challenging mission of "soul-winning." Most will focus on the second verse of the song A King and a Kingdom as illustrative of Derek's forcefulness:

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

Various concertgoers have reported people walking out in disgust over Derek's lyrics. Now from time to time he has changed the wording to "middle-class Democrat" in an attempt to demonstrate he has not traded in one set of political idolatries for another. Nevertheless because of the tone of his writing many evangelicals will likely not consider what Derek has to say and continue to write him off as just some sort of leftist.

Derek's new album The Ringing Bell is not as (overtly) politically charged as the last one, although it still has some stinging critiques in songs such as A Savior on Capitol Hill. A couple of the songs appear to be semi-veiled responses to the critical voices that have assaulted his work, while one, I Don't Want to Fight, is an appeal for peaceful dialogue over differences that he himself is surely still learning. Derek argues for his pacifism more subtly, and perhaps in the end that may be more influential.

Well, I've been tracing the history of Derek Webb's music and I've said nothing about the concert. In short, it was phenomenal. Derek played a range of his songs from Caedmon's days through the new album. He was supported by a full band and three special guests - his 7-months-pregnant wife Sandra McCracken on keyboard and vocals, producer/musician Cason Cooley on bass guitar, and current Caedmon's member and fellow solo artist Andrew Osenga on guitar and vocals. Andrew and Cason were both members of a phenomenal, and largely ignored, band called The Normals. Cason now focuses on producing while Andrew plays with Caedmon's and also produces his own well-written, largely introspective albums. Andrew remains one of my favorite artists and I would love to get him to do a concert at the Divinity School.

Despite all my talk about Derek Webb, I'm going to end with a YouTube clip from the concert of Andrew playing Early in the Morning off his latest album. I would post it on the site, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. So just follow the link. Go to YouTube and enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cSmOqZttZxQ

Labels: The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Friday, May 04, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

With company in town for spring break, Kelly and I decided to take them on a tour of some wineries here in central North Carolina. The state has seen a burgeoning wine industry in recent years, with the number of licensed vineyards jumping from 27 three years ago to 63 at this point in time. The winemakers have grown in sophistication as well as numbers, and they have begun to win awards not just in state festivals but also regional and international competitions. At the same time, meanwhile, they remain small enough and sparse enough that they do not serve up the pretentiousness of Napa Valley along with their fermented grapes. The wineries we visited had a rather comfortable, homey feel. While justifiably proud of their work, they do not set themselves up like Persian palaces - although I still bought my most expensive bottle of wine from Darioush, because it is the most amazing Cabernet Sauvignon I've ever tasted.

North Carolina now ranks somewhere between 10th and 12th among the states in total wine production, having just recently passed Colorado. Of course, it's paltry 2,000 acres runs far below California's 400,000, but nevertheless it is a significant and exciting new development in the post-tobacco economy here. The state even has its own designated wine region, the Yadkin Valley area, although vineyards can be found everywhere from the Blue Ridge to the coast. The wineries we visited are not that far west, but five of them are in such proximity that they can constitute a wine trail. They are offer certain cultural opportunities that enhance leisurely enjoyment in the area, from dancing to outdoor concerts to artists' festivals.

One aspect that makes North Carolina winemaking exciting is the possibility of a distinctive regional wine emerging. A number of the vineyards are now growing a French/American hybrid grape known as Chambourcin, which was first produced in the 1960s. This varietal has been used for some time as an ingredient in European wine blends but has not until recently been tried as a wine in its own right. However, because the Chambourcin grape grows really well in humid climates (and therefore not in California), it has become a favored choice in this state. It is also favored because while it has an assertive flavor, it is not so robust as a Cabernet or Merlot and so it is more attractive or easier to drink for people who are not used to red wine - and that certainly includes people in the Southeastern United States, who often either drink nothing alcoholic at all or otherwise drink beer and homemade moonshine and "white lightning." Nevertheless, Chambourcin remains appealing to established wine-drinkers such as myself.

The wineries here are also producing tasty Cabernets, Merlots, and Chardonnays, along with more typically Eastern varietals such as Muscadine and Scuppernong and less conventional wines such as Blackberry and Pomegranate. There's plenty to choose from and plenty to enjoy, so if you drop in to visit I know where to take you.

Labels: The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, March 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments