Sawdust and Incense: Worlds That Shape a Priest

This gentle memoir of Webbe's half-century as an Episcopal priest is anteceded by a framing introduction by novelist Gail Godwin, to whom he was a childhood mentor in Asheville, N.C. As we follow Webbe ( The Shape of Growth ) through the various configurations of his ministry--parent, pastor, headmaster--the dominant note is his appreciation of people, clearly the ingredient of his continuing influence in many lives. In his ramble over his career, which includes an entertaining exercise on how to ride a horse and how to carve a hunting bow, the author subtly and successfully interfaces the temporal and the spiritual. As Godwin notes, this is a ``debonair and discursive'' memoir. The book is the inaugural volume of an Episcopal press in North Carolina founded by Godwin. (Nov.)