So the Woman Went Her Way: A Personal Journey

by Lynne Bundesen

In this inspiring book an extraordinary journalist tells the story of her spiritual coming-of-age, speaking with candor of the pain and triumph at the core of the female religious experience.

Married young and unknowingly to an underworld figure, Lynne Bundesen fled with the children and began a journey that would take her to war-torn Cambodia, China, Israel, and Europe, as well as deep within her own heart and soul. It also chronicles her search for meaning and wholeness and her unexpected discovery of the inspiration and power she found through the women of the Bible.

207 pages, Paperback

Published March 22, 1993

About the author

Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books addressing religious issues including “So The Woman Went Her Way”, “One Prayer at A Time”(Simon and Schuster) and “The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture” (March 2007:Jossey_Bass). She was the manager of the Microsoft Network Religion Communities (1995-2000) and is currently the spiritual expert and community manager for www.drweil.com. From 2000 to 2003. She taught writing at the Boston Theological Institute – the consortium of Boston area Divinity Schools. She has lived in Hong Kong, Thailand, The Philippines, England, France, Sweden and Norway and the U.S. Her email address is lynnebundesen@hotmail.com.

Reviews

[Sandra]

I read this book many years ago, soon after it was first published, and thought it was absolutely wonderful. It's short, so I decided to re-read it. At first, I was actually somewhat appalled, but it turns out that the Prologue (which rubbed me the wrong way) is quite different from the rest of the book.

In the Prologue, Bundesen tells a painfully long story about a dinner party; if we are to believe Bundesen (and I have no reason not to), the woman hosting the party is silly and pathetic. But Bundesen is so judgmental and superior and smug, it's very hard to read. The woman wants to be liked, she wants to impress, so she bandies about a fuzzy spirituality that doesn't make sense, makes proclamations about Jesus that don't make sense, etc.

That said, once you read Bundesen's sometimes harrowing story, you realize that her spiritual life was hard-won, and so you can kind of see why she's so dismissive of Shallow Lady; but why make that her Prologue?

Bundesen uses scripture as well as any inspirational writer I've ever read; usually it's short quotations, indented and in italics, often connected to other related quotations throughout a section or chapter. Sometimes it's longer passages, but always used in a way that you don't just skim the too-long passage because it's boring and you want to get back to her story.

I'm not always nuts about her sentences (sometimes she uses sentence fragments unsuccessfully -- I don't mind them when they are used judiciously to make a point, but she sometimes writes in a somewhat fragmented way), but the book is so lovely, so well-constructed, and such a good argument for reading scripture for oneself that I have to overlook the details and give her five stars. I feel like Simon on American Idol, dragging out my objections and then giving her a thumbs up!

Finally, Bundesen recounts a conversation she had with "someone" (never really identified) about the apostle Paul's stance on women, and it's really wonderful; I saved it for possible future use in a sermon or elsewhere. So here it is:

[A woman told Bundesen about a man:] “I heard this guy say something in a church I was visiting about ten years ago,” she said. “What he said stuck with me. Try him.” . . .

I explained that I was a journalist writing about Paul, husbands, wives, and the vote.

He said that many women had told him they were conflicted about Paul.

“So many women have a deep, deep hurt about the way the Bible is interpreted,” he said. . . .
“When Paul was reminiscing on spiritual creation in Ephesians 5,” he began . . . .

Paul exhorting. That I had heard. Saul, Paul breathing out threatenings and slaughter. That I had also heard. Paul preaching. But reminiscing? Not Paul. I had never thought of him as contemplative reflective. Historical, important, zealous, but not deep, not reflective, not reminiscing. . . .

This voice on the other end of the phone lifted a veil from the text. I looked beyond the veil into the text. I listened to Paul writing and talking to his friends in Ephesus. I saw Paul separating the male and female of God’s creating from Adam and Eve, reblending it again, as he ached that men and women did not understand the equality of all relationships. I heard him as he tried to give information that could change forever the way his listeners thought about themselves, about God, about spiritual Creation.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
No as unto your husband. But as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body.
The relationship of the wife to the husband is as the relationship of Christ to the body of the church.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
How did Christ love the Church?

He washed the feet of the Church when he washed the feet of the disciples. And, there is the cross and the Resurrection.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. 167-169

[Cheryl Licata]

This memoir is full of stories of women in the Bible. This journalist obviously knows her Bible. However I found the narrative to be confusing because of the subtitle -- A Personal Journey. I think a journey needs a beginning, middle, end in that order. This memoir jumps around to various parts of the author's life from fast forward to backward in time. I finished the book feeling like I had read a series of essays, like a newspaper column on women and religion, which was the author's job. This was not the memoir I was expecting to read.

[Pamela]

I found this book uneven. The author writes in a minimalist style. In this memoir much is omitted not only content-wise, but also stylistically so that even when the author shares an account, it is not always clear exactly what happened. On the other hand, her insights about Mary Magdalene are exceptionally profound. I wish the rest of the book had equalled that chapter.

[Indhisa]

a woman should always be able to stand on her own two feet.
a woman should always feel blessed by who she is and what she's been through.
a woman should always be able to feel happiness and be positive on her own.

great book.