Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 31, 1993 TAG: 9310310227
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by MARIE S. BEAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Lynne Bundesen, award-winning journalist and photographer, tells the\ remarkable story of her journey to wholeness through pain and joy, sorrow and\ gladness. This is a spiritual autobiography, laced with Biblical allusions and\ direct quotations, but it is by no means a run-of-the-mill pious tract.
For one thing, Bundesen's use of scripture is unorthodox and idiosyncratic.\ It could set a purist's teeth on edge.
"I would like to live in a spiritually perfect universe," she writes in the\ first sentence. Instead, she has to live as an ordinary human being, with other\ ordinary human beings, most of whom are not in the least sympathetic with her\ spiritual struggles.
Married young and with no real knowledge of her fiance, she made the\ shocking discovery on their first wedding anniversary that her husband was a\ member of the underworld. He refused to give her a divorce, and she received no support from her lawyers ("Dear, what does your father say?") or from her\ father ("You married him. You're stuck with him.")
How she rescued herself from that dismal and unpromising beginning and\ became her own person makes for fascinating reading. Her story covers a large\ part of the globe, including Chicago, New Mexico, Israel, the streets of\ Washington, D.C., and the killing fields of Cambodia.
Bundesen writes honestly, compellingly, and with frequent dry humor. She\ composed this book as a photographer might compose an album, each short\ chapter a kind of word-picture, with its specific geographical identification.
Though Bundesen's experience is, of course, unique, as she herself says,\ "There is no one who is not on a journey." In the telling of her story there is\ illumination and wisdom for any pilgrim who, trapped, cries "Is this all there\ is?" and who yearns to reconcile inner and outer realities.
- Marie S. Bean is a retired college chaplain.
by CNB