Convergence

``In me, two things ordinarily thought of as incompatible were meeting,'' writes the narrator of this intriguing personal journey. Born in 1934, Bruder was ``always'' a ``devout, observant, believing Jew''--a trustee of her Long Island, N.Y., synagogue, the author of a book with Jewish themes ( Going to Jerusalem ), a mother of two and long married--but she nevertheless felt a nagging sense of spiritual incompleteness. Through what she terms ``experiential theology,'' a series of serendipitous if sometimes painful meetings with religious thinkers and mystical experiences (God speaks to her at a traffic light), Bruder, a self-described woman of intellect and an elitist, found herself called to Catholicism. Not a traditional story of conversion, hers is a modern, self-aware account of jousting with God, told with a reassuringly light touch. Bruder serves as chaplain at Fordham University in New York. (Feb.)