by Sebastian Junger
Wow. This perfectly selected gift came from my sister Laura for my birthday, and I’m sipping it with amazement every morning during my spiritual reading time. You might recognize Sebastian Junger as the author of The Perfect Storm, probably his most famous book about a doomed fishing boat in the waters off the shores of New England, made into a major motion picture. Junger himself has had many death-defying experiences as a journalist and author covering the war in Afghanistan and other dangerous conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.
But he had a near death experience when on a mundane day at home in Massachusetts with his family, an aneurysm deep inside his abdomen suddently ruptured and almost took his life. This is a blow-by-blow and highly accessible description of his complicated medical treatment, interspersed with family stories, folklore, and first-hand accounts of other near-death experiences. As a self-professed athiest raised by a skeptical physicist, this experience challenged everything Junger thought he knew or believed. It’s a slim volume that dives deep into spiritual topics I think about a lot, and it’s refreshing to read the perspective of someone who didn’t used to think he was spiritual at all.