Rev. David Webber — author of the monthly For the Journey column — and I live in two worlds which couldn’t be further apart. As you know from his column, David lives in a rural landscape in British Columbia where he enjoys the fruits of nature, with wild animals passing by his large glass picture window on a seemingly daily basis.
I live in the city. I love the city. I love the noise of cities, the buzz, the energy. Toronto is a nice city, clean, and I live in a corner of it which is particularly tree-lined with a large natural park only a couple of minutes away. It’s really pretty and lovely, but I prefer downtown, the traffic, the craziness of hundreds of thousands of people negotiating their mutual living spaces, creating art, hustling. I really love New York City, where I can walk for hours.
So it came as an absolute shock to me when I realized a few years ago that I might be For the Journey’s biggest fan. And it’s been bothering me ever since. Why I am attracted to these stories of bears and outhouses — stories which are alien to my life; and while full of wildlife, lack the blood-dripping familiar from the Boys’ Annuals I devoured as a child? What is it about David’s voice?
And then it occurred to me: it has everything to do with his voice. Each month’s story starts with action, with something happening. And that action leads David to a meditation. And in the meditation David recognizes his own flaws. He is constantly fallible. His regular co-stars, his wife and daughter, deal with crisis well, but David is rarely with the program. He’s often into himself, into his own thoughts or desires. This month, for example, while he watches birds fighting, it’s actually Linda, we’re told, who had a hand in keeping them alive.
And sure enough the confession starts pouring out of him: “I am a firm believer in hard work and I used to believe that my hard work was what sustained me. But as I have aged, I have realized that what I need to thrive or even survive, I can’t provide for myself.”
It is not by accident that the column is called For the Journey — faith is not an arrival. David is always discovering his faith each month; and, in the process he makes himself vulnerable. Month after month, he catches himself as human, as a sinner, as weak, and he has to turn once more to scripture to bring himself out of his stupor. And, in this endless exposure, he presents a very human voice.
Each month David is surprised by joy (to steal a great phrase) and each month he turns to scripture for affirmation. He exposes his weaknesses to his reader. To my mind, it wouldn’t matter if David wrote from New York City or Tuktoyaktuk because what makes these stories universal is not the location but the voice — that voice that is always open to the faith journey.
And that faith is deeply grounded in scripture. He always returns to the word; and the scripture is always grounded in theology. While vulnerable, David is never alone. He is perpetually on the journey of discovering and deepening his faith. Last month, for example, we travelled with him to discover a large dead cougar, which lead him to John Calvin, and then to “Randall C. Zachman’s recent tome.” That’s quite a journey — experience, scripture, theology, and back again. And quite an adventure; luckily there’s another one coming every month.
Coda: David has a mischievous sense of humour and I must make a confession of my own: I clean it up. For example, this month he had an imaginative anatomical reference, which I removed. No, I won’t tell you what it was — you’ll have to buy his books; the latest of which is long forthcoming.
