Contemporary Authors

• Remade for Happiness: Achieving Life's Purpose through Spiritual Transformation Ignatius Press (San Francisco, CA), 2014
• On Human Life: Humanae Vitae Ignatius Press (San Francisco, CA), 2014
• Something Other Than God : How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It ( memoir) Ignatius Press (San Francisco, CA), 2016
• One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both ( memoir) Zondervan (Grand Rapids, MI), 2018

1. One beautiful dream : the rollicking tale of family chaos, personal passions, and saying yes to them both LCCN 2017047724 Type of material Book Personal name Fulwiler, Jennifer, author. Main title One beautiful dream : the rollicking tale of family chaos, personal passions, and saying yes to them both / Jennifer Fulwiler. Published/Produced Grand Rapids, Michigan : Zondervan, [2018] ©2018 Projected pub date 1804 Description pages cm ISBN 9780310349747 (hardcover) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. Something Other Than God : How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It LCCN 2017655074 Type of material Book Personal name Fulwiler, Jennifer, author. Main title Something Other Than God : How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It / Jennifer Fulwiler ; afterword by Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan. Edition Softbound edition. Published/Produced San Francisco : Ignatius Press, [2016] Description 250 pages ; 23 cm ISBN 9781621641520 CALL NUMBER BX4668 .F859 2016 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 3. Remade for happiness : achieving life's purpose through spiritual transformation LCCN 2014905850 Type of material Book Personal name Sheen, Fulton J. (Fulton John), 1895-1979, author. Main title Remade for happiness : achieving life's purpose through spiritual transformation / Fulton J. Sheen ; foreword by Jennifer Fulwiler. Published/Produced San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 2014. ©1946 Description x, 198 pages ; 21 cm ISBN 1586177834 (pbk.) 9781586177836 (pbk.) Shelf Location FLS2016 081418 CALL NUMBER BX1754 .S5665 2014 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2) 4. On human life : Humanae vitae LCCN 2014949935 Type of material Book Corporate name Catholic Church. Pope (1963-1978 : Paul VI), author. Uniform title Humanae vitae. English Main title On human life : Humanae vitae / Pope Paul VI ; foreword by Mary Eberstadt ; afterword by James Hitchcock ; postscript by Jennifer Fulwiler. Published/Produced San Francisco : Ignatius Press, [2014] ©2014 Description 111 pages ; 21 cm ISBN 9781621640011 (paperback alk. paper) 1621640019 (paperback alk. paper) CALL NUMBER HQ766.3 .C32 2014 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 5. Something other than God : how I passionately sought happiness and accidentally found it LCCN 2013917065 Type of material Book Personal name Fulwiler, Jennifer, author. Main title Something other than God : how I passionately sought happiness and accidentally found it / Jennifer Fulwiler. Published/Produced San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 2014. Description 248 pages ; 24 cm ISBN 1586178822 9781586178826 (alk. paper) Shelf Location FLM2014 077960 CALL NUMBER BX4668 .F859 2014 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1)

• Amazon -

  Jennifer Fulwiler is a writer, speaker, and the host of The Jennifer Fulwiler Show on SiriusXM radio. Her memoir, SOMETHING OTHER THAN GOD, was listed among Amazon.com's top 20 bestselling memoirs and was a finalist in the Best Memoir category in the GoodReads Reader's Choice Awards. Her new book, ONE BEAUTIFUL DREAM, is out now. She lives with her husband and six children in Austin, Texas.

• Strange Notions - https://strangenotions.com/author/jennifer-fulwiler/

  About Jennifer Fulwiler
  Jennifer Fulwiler is a writer and speaker who converted to Catholicism after a life of atheism. She's a contributor to the books The Church and New Media (Our Sunday Visitor, 2011) and Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion (Servant, 2011), and is writing a book based on her personal blog. She and her husband live in Austin, TX with their six young children, and were featured in the nationally televised reality show Minor Revisions. Follow Jennifer on her blog, ConversionDiary.com, or on Twitter at @conversiondiary.

• Catholic World Report - https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/04/29/from-anti-catholic-atheist-to-church-loving-convert/

  From Anti-Catholic Atheist to Church-Loving Convert
  “And what I saw was that the Church was right, and that nobody else was right—no one else on the face of the planet was speaking these truths.”

  April 29, 2014 Catherine Harmon Interview 0 Print

  Jennifer Fulwiler is a popular Catholic blogger and homeschooling mother of six who writes about faith, family, media, and culture at her website, Conversion Diary. Fulwiler, whose memoir about her spiritual journey from atheism to Catholicism is titled Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It and is available today from Ignatius Press, has been published in America, Our Sunday Visitor, Envoy, and National Review Online and has appeared on Fox and Friends and Life on the Rock. She was also the subject of the reality show Minor Revisions with Jennifer Fulwiler for New York’s NET TV. She recently spoke with Catholic World Report’s managing editor Catherine Harmon about the new book, blogging through the process of conversion, and the personal challenges she faced when the practice of the Faith became more than an intellectual pursuit.

  CWR: Let’s start with the title of your book, Something Other Than God. Where did the title come from and why did you choose it?

  Jennifer Fulwiler: The title came from this wonderful C.S. Lewis quote, which is particularly meaningful because C.S. Lewis is also an atheist-to-Christian convert. The full quote says, “All that we call human history…is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” And the reason I chose that is because at first, I thought this story was just a standard conversion story, but as I got into the writing I realized this was more of a story of a search for happiness. So that’s why I chose that quote, because it talks about how we’re all searching for what will really make us happy, and we can only find that in God.

  CWR: In the book you describe the very intense, almost arduous intellectual process you went through of coming to understand Christianity and what Christians believe. During that time what was your attitude toward “cradle Christians” or those who believed in Christ in a perhaps somewhat unreflective—or at least less intellectually rigorous—way?

  Fulwiler: It changed over time. When I was younger, because I had had some bad experiences with Christians, I was very disdainful of “cradle believers” and just thought that they bought into these lies for self-serving reasons. As I got older, though, I began to see it as just a cultural thing. I didn’t think that people’s religion actually meant anything to them; I thought that’s what they did because it was the tradition in their family, or whatever.

  CWR: At what point do you think your attitude started to change?

  Fulwiler: I think after I met my husband, who was a very lukewarm Christian. But he was enough of a Christian that he knew some other believers, and considered himself a believer. It was getting to know him and getting to know his friends on more of an intimate level—I think anytime you hold stereotypes, those are always shattered when you actually get to know the people you’re stereotyping. So once I started forming real bonds with people who believed, that really made me see that there was more complexity to Christians and Christian beliefs than I had originally thought.

  CWR: What made you turn to blogging in your exploration of Christianity?

  Fulwiler: I was a web developer by background, and so it came very naturally to me to have an online presence to talk about anything that I was going through. But specifically, I still didn’t know very many Christians, and frankly, the Internet was the only place I could find a forum with lots of Christians to dialogue with. The other thing was that, because my social circles were almost entirely atheistic, it was very embarrassing to me to be exploring Christianity. And so my blog was anonymous initially, and that was a way for me to talk about these ideas without anybody knowing I was talking about these ideas.

  CWR: In the book you describe some of the relationships you developed with your readers, especially in that early stage of your conversion. Have you maintained any of those relationships?

  Fulwiler: Yes, I have; it has been wonderful. Many of the people I originally got to know when I first started that blog, before I was even Catholic, have become real friends, in person, not just through the Internet. And so it’s been wonderful to see how the Internet was what originally forged those connections.

  CWR: In one of my favorite scenes in your book, you describe one of your first sincere prayers—for the murdered rapper Tupac Shakur. Can you talk a little about what moved you to make that particular prayer, for that particular intention?

  Fulwiler: It must have just been the Holy Spirit. I’ve always been a fan of Tupac Shakur’s music and the reason that I talk about it in that chapter is that in a very, very strange way he reminds me of Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. I want to be very clear—I’m not holding him up as a role model or anything; obviously he was into some pretty bad stuff. But I did see an intellectual honesty underlying everything he ever did. So I felt a great pity for him—that his life ended up where it did. And when I thought about it in light of what Catholics believe, I just felt so sad that he never found the truth for which he was so obviously looking. And so I was very moved to pray for him.

  CWR: It is clear, in reading your account, that you were very determined to be as intellectually honest as possible as you investigated Christianity—except on the subject of abortion. You say frankly that for a time it was more important for you to remain “pro-choice” than it was to take an honest look at the morality of abortion. Why was this subject different from other areas of Christian belief for you?

  Fulwiler: Intellectual honesty was so important to me, but I willingly threw it out the window with that subject. The reason was that I believed in my heart of hearts that women need to be free, that they can’t be slaves to their own bodies. And because I bought the lies of contraceptive culture hook, line, and sinker, I thought: everybody knows that contraception isn’t 100 percent, and so when the contraception doesn’t work, women just have to have abortion as a back-up. Otherwise the sexual act—which they were assured did not have to have life-changing consequences—suddenly had life-changing consequences.

  So it was this idea of women’s freedom that trumped intellectual honesty. And, as you see in the book, I had this huge, thunder-and-lightning moment in which I realized what takes away women’s freedom is not the pro-life movement, it’s not anti-abortion stuff; what takes away women’s freedom is the lie of contraceptive culture.

  CWR: When you were pregnant with your second child, and while you and your husband were going through the process of converting to Catholicism, you were diagnosed with a blood disorder that makes pregnancy very risky for you. You write that you and your husband were “kind-of-sort-of-mostly sold on the Catholic anti-contraception stuff,” and consequently you decided not to go on contraception after giving birth, against the advice of your doctor. Can you describe what it was like to make the decision to abide by Church teaching in that pretty high-stakes, rubber-hits-the-road situation, all while still going through the process of coming into the Church?

  Fulwiler: I think it was actually really good for me. Up until that point I had thought of Christianity as ideas that happen in the pages of books. And suddenly those ideas jumped off the pages and got really real, really quickly. It brought me face-to-face with the truth that this isn’t about concepts or evaluating data and ideas; this is about, “Do I believe in Jesus Christ? Do I want to follow him? Do I want to be part of the Church that he founded?” It just made everything so real, so quickly for me, and it forced me to take it very seriously, because it was going to involve some very serious sacrifices in my life. It wasn’t just, “Oh good, I’ll become Catholic, and that means I’ll read about Catholicism.” I was really going to have to live Catholicism. It made me ask myself, how much do I really believe this?

  CWR: Would you say that that decision made the rest of your conversion process easier, or did it make it harder?

  Fulwiler: It made it difficult in the sense that it did involve sacrifice and suffering. It made it easier in the sense that it forced me to look at the issue of contraception. And what I saw was that the Church was right, and that nobody else was right—no one else on the face of the planet was speaking these truths. When I saw that the Catholic Church was not only right but that it is the only institution that is right on this issue, it made me realize that this Church really is guided by God, that these teachings come from God, not from people. And so in that sense it actually made my conversion easy, because I fully, 100 percent believed at that moment that I had found the Church that Jesus Christ personally founded.

  CWR: And your husband was completely on the same page with you about this?

  Fulwiler: Yes. What was interesting was that he started out an anti-Catholic Baptist, and I was an anti-Catholic atheist. At the beginning of this exploration process, we both agreed to look at what is true, to set aside our biases and our baggage and just say, “What is true?” And when we took an honest look at the contraception issue and all the other Church teachings it was very clear to both of us that this is true.

  CWR: Your book ends shortly after you and your husband are received into the Church. In the years since then, you’ve had four more children, your blog has become one of the most popular Catholic blogs out there, and you’ve even starred in a reality show about your family life. But your blog is still called “Conversion Diary.” Is that process of conversion one that’s squarely behind you now, with all your questions answered?

  Fulwiler: No, not at all. In fact, that’s why I wanted to call it Conversion Diary. The original name was “The Reluctant Atheist,” way back when, and so I wanted to change the name when I wasn’t an atheist anymore. When I announced the new name I was going on this wonderful quote from Pope Benedict in which he talks about how conversion never ends—every day of the Christian life is a constant journey of conversion, of growing closer to God. And I wanted to give the blog that title as a reminder to me that my conversion is not something that ended in 2007, that my conversion is something that will happen until the day I die.

  Jennifer Fulwiler on big families, the Mommy Wars, and “wholeness of vision” amid family chaos
  The best-selling author’s new book is about pursuing your passions while still putting your family first.

  May 11, 2018 Catherine Harmon The Dispatch 14 Print

  Author Jennifer Fulwiler and the cover of her second book "One Beautiful Dream" (images courtesy of Zondervan).
  Jennifer Fulwiler has six children, a daily radio show, and two memoirs on her conversion and the challenges of finding balance in the midst of motherhood. Her first book, Something Other than God, details her spiritual journey from atheism to Catholicism, and her second, One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Personal Passions, Family Chaos, and Saying Yes to Them Both, is about how she pursued her passion for writing while having six babies in eight years.

  Fulwiler corresponded with CWR while on the book tour (with kids in tow!) for One Beautiful Dream, which is available now.

  CWR: Do you feel at all like you’re wading into the “Mommy Wars” with this book?

  Jennifer Fulwiler: Yes. It is my intent to wade right into the middle of this war and call a truce. There are now so many options for how to follow your passions and still put God and family first, these debates have become dated. We should be coming together to brainstorm the best ways to maximize all the great opportunities that women have today rather than holding ourselves and others up to dated, one-size-fits-all standards.

  CWR: Do you see a connection between your openness to having a large family and your approach to writing?

  Fulwiler: Absolutely. Thanks to having a large family, I accept inconveniences and setbacks and not getting to do things my way all the time as a natural part of life. This has had a great impact on my writing.

  CWR: In recent years, there has been a bit of a backlash to the idea that women can “have it all,” and then some backlash to the backlash. Do you think “having it all” looks different for women of faith than for those approaching the situation from a secular perspective?

  Fulwiler: I think there used to be more of an emphasis on traditional careers as the source of all happiness in the secular world—I certainly felt that when I was an atheist—but that is changing as people become increasingly cynical about the modern American workplace.

  In my experience, these days women of faith and women with a more secular background want the same thing: fulfillment. And in both cases that means some kind of balance between doing work that they love, spending time with people they love, and somehow getting the bills paid in the midst of that.

  CWR: One Beautiful Dream includes a lot of particulars about how you’ve been able to raise a large family and pursue your passions—the child-care arrangements, financial considerations, the support you received from family and friends. Particulars aside, are there generally-applicable principles you’re hoping women will take away from your story, and use in their own lives?

  Fulwiler: Definitely. The secret formula we discovered, that I hope both men and women will try out in their own lives, is:

  Partner with your family—come together and discuss all of these big questions with them. Think like a team instead of like an individual.
  Build your village—we weren’t meant to live our lives in isolation. Take whatever steps make sense given your unique circumstances to form a reliable support system.
  Be strategic about money—so often we sign ourselves up for big lifestyle expenses we can barely afford, and then we become slaves to those payments. If that works for you, great! But just watch those kinds of things carefully because they can severely limit the freedom the breadwinner(s) in your family have to find work that they love.
  CWR: In your book, you discuss your writing more in terms of following a God-given passion than of pursuing a high-powered career. For women who already feel a lot of pressure not only to be good wives and mothers, but also to be professionally successful—do you think they might feel an additional pressure not to fail themselves (or perhaps even God) if they aren’t feeding the “blue flame” of their personal passions?

  Fulwiler: My message is ultimately about finding fulfillment—for me, that involved finding a way to use my blue flame. For someone else, it might involve simply living life to the fullest each day. My hope is that women will throw off all of these unnecessary obligations they’ve been putting on themselves and feel free to be the unique individuals God created them to be.

  CWR: Two phrases that you revisit throughout your book are “put love first” and “wholeness of vision.” While appreciating that all Christians are called primarily to love, do you think that “wholeness of vision” is something women have a particular affinity for?

  Fulwiler: Yes. I think that’s part of the “feminine genius” that St. John Paul II spoke of. To me, having a “wholeness of vision” is having an understanding that the love we give and receive is the most important thing in life. I think women tend to have more of a natural understanding of this (even though it took me a long time to clue in to it myself).

• Why I'm Catholic - http://whyimcatholic.com/index.php/conversion-stories/atheist-converts/item/103-atheist-convert-jennifer-fulwiler

  Jennifer Fulwiler
  Jennifer Fulwiler is a writer from Austin, Texas who converted to Catholicism after a life of atheism.

  How the Search for Truth Led Me from Atheism to Catholicism

  One thing I could never get on the same page with my fellow atheists about was the idea of meaning. The other atheists I knew seemed to feel like life was full of purpose despite the fact that we're all nothing more than chemical reactions. I could never get there. In fact, I thought that whole line of thinking was unscientific, and more than a little intellectually dishonest. If everything that we call heroism and glory, and all the significance of all great human achievements, can be reduced to some neurons firing in the human brain, then it's all destined to be extinguished at death. And considering that the entire span of homo sapiens' existence on earth wouldn't even amount to a blip on the radar screen of a 5-billion-year-old universe, it seemed silly to pretend like the 60-odd-year life of some random organism on one of trillions of planets was something special. (I was a blast at parties.)

  By simply living my life, I felt like I was living a lie. I acknowledged the truth that life was meaningless, and yet I kept acting as if my own life had meaning, as if all the hope and love and joy I'd experienced was something real, something more than a mirage produced by the chemicals in my brain. Suicide had crossed my mind -- not because I was depressed in the common sense of the word, simply because it seemed like it was nothing more than speeding up the inevitable. A life multiplied by zero yields the same result, no matter when you do it.

  Not knowing what else to do, I followed the well-worn path of people who are trying to run from something that haunts them: I worked too much. I drank too much. I was emotionally fragile. Many of my relationships with other people were toxic. I wrapped myself in a cocoon of distractions, trying to pretend like I didn't know what I knew.

  ###

  A year after I graduated from college, I met a guy at work named Joe. I was so impressed with him, I didn't think I had much of a chance. He'd grown up poor, raised by a single mother, and had gone on to get degrees from Yale, Columbia and Stanford. People who knew him said he was one of the smartest people they'd ever met. So when we began dating, I was thrilled. Our life together turned out to be even better than I could have imagined: We traveled the world on whims, ate at the finest restaurants, flew first class, and threw epic parties on the roof of his loft downtown. On top of that, both of our careers were taking off, so our future held only more money and more success.

  We were a perfect couple. The only thing we didn't see the same way was the issue of religion. A few months after we started dating, it came out that Joe not only believed in God, but considered himself a Christian. I did not understand how someone who was perfectly capable of rational thought could believe in fairy tale stories like those of Christianity. Did he believe in Santa Claus too?

  It didn't cause any problems between us, though, since we had the same basic moral code, he didn't practice this bizarre faith of his in any noticeable way, and, mainly, I did not want to think about it. At all. Whenever the subject of God came up, something deep within me recoiled. Not that I had any problem demolishing silly theist ideas -- it had been something of a hobby back in college -- but the subject took me too close to that thing I was trying to forget. I had constructed my entire life around not thinking about it, so I never articulated what it was. It had been so buried by the parties and the socializing and the breathless running from place to place that it was no longer a specific concept, just some dark, cold amorphous knowledge I needed to avoid.

  Joe and I married in a theater in 2003, reciting vows we wrote ourselves, with me wearing a dark purple dress. The plan was that marriage would be just a stepping stone along the path we were already on. But then I discovered I was pregnant, and everything changed.

  ###

  Motherhood caught me completely off guard. I'd grown up as an only child in a culture where nobody I knew had more than two kids living at home. I never had a friend whose mom had a baby during the time of our friendship. And considering that I'd never wanted kids and had some minor medical issues that made me think I probably couldn't have them anyway, I was utterly unprepared for motherhood. The physical, mental and emotional changes I went through after the birth of my son were a hard blow, like a punch to the head that comes out of the blue, and it left me reeling.

  This cataclysmic event unearthed all those old thoughts about meaninglessness, and this time there was no re-burying them. Now that I had a child, it felt like my life had more meaning than ever. The dark-haired, blue-eyed baby felt so valuable; my own life was flooded with hope and joy at his presence. But with none of the usual distractions in place, the facts of the matter now descended upon me: There was nothing transcendent about my son's life, my life, or any of the love I felt for him. He was destined for the same fate as the rest of us, to have his entire existence erased upon his inevitable death.

  For weeks, I hardly got out of bed. Some combination of severe sleep deprivation and more severe depression left me almost catatonic. But then one morning, as I looked at the baby in the pre-dawn light that filtered in through the window, I felt something new within me. It was something that was not despair, some unfamiliar yet welcome feeling. I peeled back the layers to find that it was doubt: Doubt of my purely materialist worldview, doubt of the truth I had believed since childhood that there is nothing transcendent about the human life.

  I considered that in almost every single time and place throughout human history, people have believed in some kind of spiritual realm. Almost every human society we know of has shared the belief that there is more to life than meets the eye, that what transpires here in the material world somehow reverberates into the eternal. Previously I had assumed that the vast majority of the billions of people who had ever lived were all simply ignorant; now I wondered if maybe I was the one who was missing something.

  ###

  A few months later, I stumbled across a Christian book. I'd never been in the Religion section of a bookstore, let alone read anything about Christianity. I'd only picked up this book because the author claimed to be a former atheist, and I was curious to see what level of fraud he was. After flipping through the first few pages, I was surprised to find that I believed that he had been an atheist. I read a few more pages, and found his writing to be clear and basically reasonable. Obviously he'd come to the wrong conclusions, but I could respect the fact that he at least attempted to reason his way into his current belief system, rather than basing it on some emotional experience. I found that I couldn't put the book down, and ended up buying it (loudly noting to the cashier that it was a gift for a friend).

  A quick internet search showed that the book was widely scorned by atheists, and some of their counter-points to the author's arguments were good. But it was simply not true to say that there was nothing compelling about it. For example, the book pointed out that thousands of Jewish people abandoned the sacred practices that had sustained them through centuries, through all types of persecution, in the years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Almost all of Jesus' original followers went to their death rather than recant their statements that they'd seen him rise from the dead. Christianity spread like wildfire in the early centuries, despite the fact that becoming a Christian often meant persecution or even death.

  I had never seen Jesus as anything other than a silly fairy tale figure whom people called upon to give a divine thumbs-up to self-serving beliefs; but now I was intrigued by the man as a historical figure. Something happened in first-century Palestine, something so big that it still sends shockwaves down to the present day. And it all centered around the figure of Jesus Christ. As Joe once pointed out when I asked him why he considered himself a Christian, Christianity is the only one of all the major world religions to be founded by a guy who claimed to be God. That's an easy claim to disprove if it's not true.

  One afternoon, shortly after I finished the book, I was caught off guard by a thought:

  What if it's true?

  What if there were a God? What if he chose to enter history as a human being? It was the most shattering thought that had ever crossed my mind. Never once in my life, not even as a child, had I considered that a personal God might exist, or that there could be even a shred of truth to any of Christianity's supernatural claims. I quickly came to my senses and admonished myself to stop this silliness. Part of me wondered if I was losing my mind -- what else could explain such a thought?

  I wanted to forget all about this embarrassing little incident...but I couldn't. Some strange feeling had risen up within me, that wouldn't let me walk away from this subject. I figured that it must be simple curiosity. All I needed to do was read a bit more about Christianity, then when I was overwhelmed with the obvious flaws in its theology, I could move on.

  ###

  I bought another Christian book, this one called Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Unfortunately, this was not going to help me extricate myself from this religion.

  Lewis was reasonable and obviously intelligent. His book was one of most clear, well-written things I'd read in a long time. I was particularly captivated by his case for the Natural Law, in which he proposed that God is the source of all that we call "good," and that that's why people in all times and places have had the same basic ideas about what is good and what is bad. My curiosity piqued, I then read excerpts online from the great Christian thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas. I began to think that this religion was not opposed to reason at all -- in fact, some of the most intelligent, reasonable people in history were Christians.

  I finally caved in and bought a Bible, the first I'd ever owned. Not knowing how else to approach it, I started reading at page one. I was alternately baffled and horrified by what I read in the first few hundred pages. Joe encouraged me to the second part of the book, called the New Testament, explaining that that's where Jesus comes into the picture. That didn't help. There was no clear call to action, like, "If you like what you've read here and would like to become a Christian, here's what you do..." I had no idea how to interpret most of the passages...and it seemed like no one else did either. When I would search online for whether or not the Bible said abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, etc. were right or wrong, I encountered as many different answers as there were people, with each person citing Bible verses to back up his or her personal view. Similarly, I had no idea which church to go to if I wanted to ask someone questions in person: In my community there was everything from Church of Christ to Jehovah's Witnesses to conservative Baptist to liberal Anglican churches, each one claiming to be based on the Bible, yet they all taught drastically different things about what constitutes sin.

  This was a huge problem. If God is all that is good, then to define what is bad -- i.e., sin -- is to define the very boundaries of God himself. It was nonsensical to suggest that his religion would be confused on that issue.

  I'd found what I was looking for: the flaw that showed that Christianity didn't make sense. It was time to move on.

  ###

  Shortly after I came to this realization, someone I'd encountered online made a crazy suggestion: he said that I'd been approaching the whole thing from a very modern and distinctly American perspective, that the traditional understanding of Christianity is totally different. He suggested that Jesus founded just one Church before he left the earth, and that he instilled it with supernatural power so that it would accurately articulate the truth about what is good -- and therefore about what is God -- for all times and places. As if that weren't crazy enough, he was talking about the Catholic Church!

  Joe and I both balked. Joe said that Catholicism wasn't real Christianity, and I knew that the Church was an archaic, oppressive, sexist institution. Besides, this idea of supernaturally-empowered people was just silly.

  However, I did notice something: almost all the people who had impressed me with their ability to defend their faith through reason alone, both famous authors and people online, were Catholic. In fact, the more I paid attention, the more I saw that the Catholic intellectual tradition was one of the greatest in the world. I began reading books by Catholic authors; not that I was really interested in Catholicism, I told myself -- I was just looking for something good to read. But I couldn't help but admit that these people seemed to posses an understanding of the world and the human experience that I'd never encountered before. They had the same solid grasp on science and the material world as the atheists, but also possessed a knowledge of the movements of the human soul that resonated as true down to the core of my being.

  I wasn't sure what to make of all this Catholic stuff, and still vehemently disagreed with the Church on some of its crazier ideas, like its opposition to abortion and contraception. But I had to admit that the more I read about Catholic theology, the more sane it seemed.

  I also began to think that it was more likely than not that God does exist, and that if the Christians weren't entirely right, they were at least close with their understanding of him. But why, then, had I had no experience of him? Not that that was a requirement for me to believe, but it just seemed like if there were a God out there and he cared about me, I would sense his presence in some way.

  I'd been under a lot of stress between having a new baby and some money problems we were experiencing, plus I'd developed a severe pain in my leg that was almost debilitating. All along I'd prided myself on saying that I would never convert based on emotional experience, that I only needed facts, not feelings. But now it was getting old. It was hurtful to think that God might be out there but just withholding comfort from me. I was tired of pressing forward in this pursuit with no sense of his presence. I could be miserable and feel alone in the universe as an agnostic -- why bother with this religion business if that didn't change anything?

  ###

  My feelings of frustration and resentment towards God reached a head. And then, just at the right time, I happened to come across a quote from C.S. Lewis in which he pointed out:

  [God] shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

  Of course. I'd been walking around talking trash, watching TV shows that portrayed all types of nastiness, indulging in selfish behavior...and yet wondering why I couldn't feel the presence of the source of all goodness. I realized that, if I were serious about figuring out if God exists or not, it could not be an entirely intellectual exercise. I had to be willing to change.

  I wasn't sure if I was ready to sign up for that for the long haul, but I decided to give it a shot: I committed to go a month living according to the Catholic moral code. I bought a copy of the Catholic Catechism, a summary of the Church's teachings, and studied it carefully, living my life according to what it taught, even in the cases where I wasn't sure the Church was right.

  My goal with the experiment had been to discover the presence of God; instead, I discovered myself -- the real me. I had thought that cynicism, judgmentalness, and irritability were just parts of who I was, but I realized that there was a purer, better version of myself buried underneath all that filth -- what the Church would call sins -- that I had never before encountered.

  I found that the rules of the Church, that I had once perceived to be a set of confining laws, were rules of love; they defined the boundaries between what is love and what is not. It had changed me, my life, and my marriage for the better. I may not have experienced God, but, by following the teachings of the Church that was supposedly founded by him, I had experienced real love.

  Following the teachings about contraception had been moot since I was pregnant with our second child, but I did read up on it during my experiment of following the Church's teachings. And, to my great surprise, I discovered that the Church had incredibly reasonable defenses of its points. I asked Joe to take a look at this stuff in case I was missing something, and, to his own amazement, he also found the Church's arguments to be airtight. He had been doing his own investigation into Catholicism, and this was the final issue that had been troubling him too. We looked at each other, and for the first time dared to ask:

  Are we going to become Catholic?!

  ###

  Only two weeks after we had that thought, that pain in my leg got so bad that I ended up in the ER. I was seven months pregnant with our second child, and it turned out that I had a deep vein thrombosis, a life-threatening blood clot in a major vein. If the clot had broken free, I likely would have died.

  After some testing, the doctors delivered worse news: I have a genetic clotting disorder that means that my blood clots easily -- and I inherited from both parents, which makes it worse. On top of that, it's exacerbated by pregnancy, which makes pregnancy dangerous for me.

  I had a lot of time to mull over this turn of events: the clot couldn't be treated during pregnancy, and the pain was so severe that I could no longer walk on my own. So I spent most of my days lying in bed, wondering what to do now.

  To treat the clot postpartum, the doctors wanted to prescribe an FDA Category X drug to treat the clot -- it's so dangerous for pregnancy that women often choose to be sterilized before they take it. They told me that my clotting disorder means I should not have any more children, because of the risk that pregnancy poses to my health. I didn't want them to think I was religious for fear of what they'd think of me, but when I hinted at the question of using Natural Family Planning (a method for spacing children that the Church deems morally acceptable), they laughed. Someone with my condition had to use contraception, they said. There was no choice.

  Fatigued by the constant pain, overwhelmed by medical bills that were piling up by the thousands, I began to slide back away from this religion, tumbling down a slope that ended back in atheism. I hadn't minded changing in the sense of not using the f-word so much, but this was a whole different ballgame. To stick with the Church now would be to lose my life as I knew it, and to set out down an unfamiliar, frightening path.

  Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the basics of the way I'd been taught to work through problems since childhood. My dad, my parent from whom I got my religious views (or lack thereof), had not raised me to be an atheist as much as he'd raised me to seek truth fearlessly. "Never believe something because it's convenient or it makes you feel good," he'd always say. "Ask yourself: 'Is this true?'"

  And so I set everything else aside, and clung to the simple question: What is true?

  I quickly realized then that that was not in question, and hadn't been for a while. For weeks now, I had known on an intellectual level that I believed what the Church taught. What stalled me had not been a hesitation of whether or not it was true; it had been a hesitation of not wanting to sacrifice too much.

  I had no idea how things would work out. I thought there was a fair chance that this step would lead us to financial ruin, and may even take a serious toll on my health. But I decided, for the first time in a long time, to choose what was true instead of what was comfortable. Joe and I signed up to begin the formation process at our parish church. And, in the first statement of faith I'd ever made, I told my doctors that I would not use contraception, because I was Catholic.

  ###

  After that moment, a bunch of fortuitous events occurred that smoothed the way for us to become Catholic. A series of windfalls gave us the money we needed to manage our medical bills. After they got over their initial shock at encountering someone who wouldn't contracept, my doctors came up with creative solutions to keep me healthy. Even after a surprise positive pregnancy test came at the worst possible time, just a few weeks after I'd healed from the blood clot, a bunch of startling coincidences played out to help us stay afloat during that difficult time.

  The next Spring, three days before Joe and I would be received into the Church, it was time for my first confession. As I approached the confessional, I had no hesitation. I had an intellectual understanding that God is the source of goodness, and that therefore it's important that we take great care repent when we have done something bad. But I'd already privately confessed all these sins in my head, so I figured that telling them to the priest, who was simply standing in for Jesus, would be redundant -- after all, Jesus had already heard all this stuff.

  But as soon as I heard the words coming from my mouth, everything changed. To hear all of these selfish, cowardly, hateful acts articulated with real words, for another human being to hear, was more powerful than I could have ever imagined. Tears began to flow, and, as I continued recounting every unloving thing I'd ever done, I shook and sobbed. Never could I have imagined the impact it would have on me to hear of my own sins, spoken out loud; but never could I have imagined how much it would impact me to hear the words, spoken by the priest on behalf of God, that I was forgiven. I walked away from the confessional in a daze, and slid into a pew in the silent church. I knew that my life had just changed, never to be the same again.

  Later that night, around midnight, I stepped out on the back porch. When I was younger I used to avoid going outside at night when it was quiet and still, because it would trigger memories of all those ominous thoughts about meaningless that I was trying to forget. The darkness outside was too familiar, as if it had all spilled out from somewhere within me. But as I stood there that night after my first confession, I realized that all that was gone. The darkness within me was simply not there anymore. In its place was peace, and an unmistakable feeling of love. For the first time, I felt the presence of God.

  Jennifer is a columnist for Envoy magazine, a regular guest on the Relevant Radio and EWTN Radio networks, and a contributor to the books The Church and New Media and Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion. She's also writing a book based on her personal blog, ConversionDiary.com. As much as she loves writing, her favorite job is being mom to her five young children.

  If you have found this story helpful in your spiritual journey we hope you will consider sharing it. Have feedback or would like to share your story? Email us at convert@whyimcatholic.com

  Read 296773 times

• Jennifer Fulwiler website - http://jenniferfulwiler.com/

  I host a two-hour daily live radio show called The Jennifer Fulwiler Show on SiriusXM channel 129, where I share fresh takes on pop culture and the spiritual life.

  I write books. My latest humor memoir, One Beautiful Dream, was no. 1 at Barnes & Noble and in the top 25 on all of Amazon. (I’m still doing a happy dance.)

  v
  I’m an extreme introvert who speaks all over the country and founded a women’s conference. Topics include living without limits, rethinking balance, and the spiritual life.

  Your friend Jen
  I’M ON A MISSION TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO LIVE A PASSIONATE, IMPERFECT LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS.
  [NOTE: If you are an event organizer or media producer looking for an official bio or pictures, please see my Media Kit here.]

  I’m Jennifer Fulwiler, a radio host on SiriusXM, bestselling author, speaker, and mother of six. I’m doing my best to live without limits, without guilt, and without much sleep.

  My latest book, One Beautiful Dream, is about how to love and appreciate who you are, even if you’re imperfect (which we all are). In it, I detail the struggles I went through as I tried to find how to use my God-given gifts while still putting my family first.

  My “me time” is my two-hour daily radio show, The Jennifer Fulwiler Show. I also chronicle my daily experiences on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, where I post about severed doll heads and the complexity of life. I’ve been a guest on Huffington Post Live, Fox and Friends, and other national television shows, which taught me it is extremely important to have a professional blow-out if you’re going to be anywhere near television camera lights. A crazy religious awakening in 2007 inspired me to start blogging about my adventures and mishaps in spirituality, which eventually led to my first book, Something Other than God.

  I live in Austin, Texas, with my family of eight and 130-pound dog. My love language is being left alone in silent rooms.

  More about me

  My favorite genres of music are Gregorian chant and gangsta rap.
  I had six kids in eight years. Six. In eight years.
  My husband and I were both only children. Our homes used to be so quiet.
  I’m an INTP. In case you’re not familiar with Myers-Briggs personality types, let me put it this way: I once saw a sci-fi movie about a man who was a brain in a jar, and I thought, “What a great life.”
  I’m a cerebral, skeptical, cynical person but I also take my faith seriously.
  Sometimes I make questionable decisions like taking my entire family on a month-long book tour.

• National Review - https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/motherhood-jennifer-fulwiler-book-one-beautiful-dream/

  One Beautiful Book about Life and Motherhood Today
  By NR INTERVIEW
  May 13, 2018 6:00 AM

  Jennifer Fulwiler
  Jennifer Fulwiler on becoming what you are
  ‘Jen is a constant reminder to me that God has dreams for all of us that go so far beyond what we can imagine and most certainly take our lives in a direction that we never planned, but following him would be never boring,” is how a fellow admiring mom describes Jennifer Fulwiler in the foreward to Fulwiler’s new book One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both. “She’s a picture of what God can do with a woman who will say yes even when it looks messy, even when it looks hard, and even when it’s so different from the picture you had in your head.”

  The radio talk-show host (who you will enjoy following on Twitter) talks about life, motherhood, faith, and the book.

  Kathryn Jean Lopez: Is there just one “beautiful dream”?

  Jennifer Fulwiler: Absolutely not. In fact, that’s why I wrote a memoir instead of a how-to book. I can’t tell you what your “one beautiful dream” is; but I hope that by sharing mine you might be inspired.

  Lopez: How do you know what to say yes to? Especially when we’re talking yes to God on big things and small.

  Fulwiler: One key to discerning these things is to make these decisions with your family (or whoever your main support system is) — to value your personal passions, but to see them as just one part of something bigger that you and your family will create together. The other key is to make these decisions without fear, shame, or comparison. Too often we put limits on ourselves that really don’t need to be there. It’s important to ask these big questions with full permission to follow whatever path is right for you.

  Lopez: To what extent is your book about motherhood in America circa 2018?

  Fulwiler: That’s the key thing it explores. Motherhood today is so different from what it was even 15 years ago, let alone 50 years ago. When we ask questions about balance and “having it all,” too often we’re stuck in old paradigms that were more applicable in the 1980s than they are today. With the proliferation of opportunities for creativity and work that the Internet age has brought, it’s time to have a fresh discussion about motherhood and fulfillment.

  Lopez: What do you hear most often from other mothers? Does our politics and culture ever seem to “get” what you’re hearing — and living?

  Fulwiler: I’m hearing from so many women that they struggle with guilt and shame. They want to follow their own dreams, but they feel guilty doing so. They think they have to follow a million rules in order to be perfect parents. They love their families, but often don’t look forward to getting out of bed the next day. I don’t think there is currently a conversation in our culture that really addresses what the average mother is lying awake at night stressing out about.

  Lopez: Why is humor so important to you as a writer and a mother?

  Fulwiler: Humor breaks down barriers. It reminds you not to take yourself too seriously, and therefore fosters connection with others.

  Lopez: You previously wrote a book on your journey from atheism to Catholicism. What kind of feedback strikes you the most from that book? Anything that would be helpful to the atheist who might be wondering if there is more to consider or for Christians who might want to do a better job not just being evangelists but friends?

  Fulwiler: Honestly, I’m surprised by how many people enjoyed Something Other than God. My journey from atheism to faith was a very intellectual one. Basically, I read a lot of books and thought about a lot of deep questions. As I was writing it, I kept thinking, “Does anyone want to read a book that’s basically about a woman reading books in her house and thinking about them?” But so many people have said that they can connect with someone who has more of a cerebral, skeptical approach to faith.

  In terms of being evangelists, I think it all comes down to one word: love. Love your life, love God, and love others, and you will be an effective evangelist.

  Lopez: How does a self-described introvert actually handle having a radio show, manage a household, and do a book tour?

  Fulwiler: I have lots and lots of help. One of the biggest lessons I share in One Beautiful Dream is that we’re not meant to do this alone — “this” meaning almost anything in life, whether it’s raising kids or pursuing a goal. My husband and I spent years working on building a great support system for our family, and it is what makes all of this possible.

  Lopez: Going from “careerist atheist who never wanted a family” to “having six babies in eight years” is a pretty significant part of your story. Is there something about big families that you’d suggest people consider? Or, at least, openness to life? Some people worry pro-lifers want everyone to have six babies in eight years and that’s both terrifying and not financially — or medically — possible in some people’s cases. What is it about your dreams and realities and God’s will that you hope to convey with this book?

  Fulwiler: I definitely don’t think that there is one right family size. I’m an only child married to another only child, so I’ve seen wonderful families of all sizes. The message I hope people take away from this book is that it’s good to be “open to life” — and by that I mean being flexible and welcoming of others. For us, that’s our children and various friends and neighbors. For someone else, being open to life might look completely different. The important thing is not to let pride or fear or perfectionism block you from forming intimate connections with others.

  Lopez: What’s your favorite part of Mother’s Day?

  Fulwiler: Both of our mothers do so much for our family, and it is wonderful to have a chance to thank them in a tangible way.

  Lopez: What do you say to women who are not mothers — or have lost children to miscarriage or abortion or death — and find themselves hurting on Mother’s Day?

  Fulwiler: I will pray for you. I’m afraid that any attempts at words of wisdom would sound platitudinous, so I would simply say that I do regularly pray for women in these situations, as well as for all people who have a desire that has not been fulfilled in their lives.

  Lopez: What’s the hardest part of speaking about some of the most intimate realities of life?

  Fulwiler: These are hot-button topics, and people can sometimes get very angry when discussing them. The criticism often gets personal, and that’s never fun.

  Lopez: What is it that you have come to most appreciate about women and the Catholic Church once you became Catholic?

  Fulwiler: Being Catholic led me to experience an inner freedom as a woman that I never had before. I used to have all sorts of insecurities and struggles that related to my role in the world, particularly as a woman, and reading the rich Catholic thinking on the dignity of women brought me tremendous healing in that department.

  Lopez: What’s your key advice to moms who feel overwhelmed right now?

  Fulwiler: Carve out time for a conversation with your spouse, and get really honest about what you need. And don’t feel guilty about it! You’re not selfish for wanting some time for yourself to pursue your own dreams or just binge watch a dumb show. Your desire to recharge your own batteries is actually a sign of your commitment to your family — and when you take that time you need to fill yourself up, you’ll find that you have even more love and energy to give back to those you love.

  COMMENTS

  Lopez: Are you surprised by any of the feedback this book seems to be prompting?

  Fulwiler: I’ve been surprised by what a great response I’ve gotten from single women. So many of them are telling me that they feared setting their passions aside if they end up getting married. It’s encouraging to see this message of dreaming big and dreaming fearlessly resonating with folks whose stories are different from mine.

• Archdiocese of Baltimore website - https://www.archbalt.org/qa-with-jennifer-fulwiler-talking-her-book-faith-marriage-family-and-what-to-do-when-its-530-and-theres-nothing-in-the-oven/

  Q&A with Jennifer Fulwiler: Talking her book, faith, marriage, family, and what to do when it’s 5:30 and there’s nothing in the oven
  CATHOLIC REVIEWAUGUST 27, 2014NEWS
  Jennifer Fulwiler is one of those funny, brilliant people with an amazing story and the talent to tell it.

  If you don’t know who she is, you could stop by her blog or pick up her recently released book, Something Other Than God, where she describes her spiritual and intellectual journey from atheism to Catholicism.

  Or, if you are in the Baltimore/D.C. area, you can meet her in person…because she’s coming to Washington, D.C. at the end of September! I can hardly wait!

  Jennifer Fulwiler

  In fact, I can’t wait.

  So I call her for an interview. I’m a little nervous, and right away Jen has a question for me: “Is this for print or are we on the air?”

  “On the air? Oh, wow, no. Thank goodness, no.” And suddenly I don’t feel nervous at all because the idea of having to do an interview live is absolutely terrifying.

  Then, because I can’t help myself, I start gushing about how much I loved her book.

  “You probably get tired of hearing people say that,” I say.

  “I worked on it so hard and so long that maybe in a hundred years I’ll get tired of hearing that,” she says. She tells me that she started writing the book in the summer of 2008. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I need to be realistic. I don’t think there is any way this can be published before 2010.”

  “Well, you’ve had a few things happen since 2008,” I say. Because she has. Her family has grown significantly–she’s the mother of six children 11 and younger.

  So I actually call Jen Fulwiler twice

  As I’m talking, I suddenly realize she isn’t. The phone is dead. I dial Jen’s number and we start again.

  “What’s some of the best feedback you’ve received on the book?” I ask.

  “You know, the greatest moments so far have been when I hear from people who were not solid in their faith,” she says. “Just yesterday I heard from a woman in England who had been raised Catholic and had fallen away. She said God used my book to reignite her faith and bring her back to the Church.”

  On writing Something Other Than God

  “If you had read this book yourself back when you were searching, would it have helped you find your way?” I ask.

  “I think it would have, once I was at a point of openness. When I was staunchly opposed to faith and closed-minded, there was no book in the world that would have moved me. People who don’t want to hear the truth won’t hear it,” Jen says. “I do think this book would have helped me because everyone likes stories where people aren’t telling you what to believe. They’re just talking about how it happened to them.”

  Jen talks about how she read her drafts through that lens, thinking of how she would have viewed it in 2004, considering whether it would have alienated her.

  “I hadn’t thought of it,” she says, “but it was almost like a letter to myself of 10 years ago.”

  Two faith journeys or one?

  I ask about her conversion–and her husband’s. Although Jen and her husband, Joe, converted to Catholicism at the same time, they seemed in many ways to be on individual, separate journeys, supporting each other, but not pushing each other either.

  “You bring up a really interesting insight about the fact that we didn’t put pressure on one another,” she says. “I think initially the reason behind it wasn’t really a great thing. It was, to be honest, we didn’t really care that much. We were speaking truths, we wanted to know the truth, but ultimately we just wanted to drive nice cars and make money. Now he and I are completely on the same page with regards to faith and if one of us were to lose faith now, that would be a very big deal.”

  She pauses for a moment. “Isn’t that amazing how God can bring good out of anything?”

  “You’ll get over atheism…”

  In her book there’s a scene where she and Joe are on a plane, and they start talking about belief in God. Jen reminds him that she doesn’t believe in God and asks whether it bothers him.

  “You’re reasonable, so you’ll get over the atheism thing eventually,” he tells her in the book.

  “I’m actually a little surprised you didn’t just walk away,” I tell Jen.

  “It’s funny,” she says, “I think that when people see us interact in person, there’s a new color that’s added to that exchange. We speak very bluntly to one another. We’re constantly saying things that our friends are saying, ‘Whoa, I’m surprised that that works.’ I actually toned that conversation down.”

  “So his comment didn’t upset you,” I say.

  “I knew that his number one thing in life, his real religion, was having a nice worldly lifestyle, and that was my religion, too,” she says. “If he had said something like, ‘I need to quit my job, we need to stop blowing all our money on vacations,’ that would have been different. I knew that he was just talking and didn’t really care.”

  Let’s talk motherhood

  I ask about her children. “What do they know,” I ask, “about your conversion?”

  “They know that we came into the faith,” she says. “We don’t dwell on our background a whole lot at this point, because our philosophy is to help them be really solid in our faith now. I do think–in our family culture–they know that we are very, very happy to be Catholic, and that we tried it another way and found it to be very lacking. I hope they sense our gratitude for our faith. We got a glimpse of what life could have been.”

  “Many of the people who read my blog are looking for advice on how to raise their children to have a strong faith,” I ask. “What advice would you offer them?”

  “Usually when that kind of thing comes up I say, ‘I have no idea. Please pray for me,’” she says. “When it comes to raising the next generation in the faith, neither my husband or I grew up in that culture. I wasn’t even friends with Catholics. I don’t have that life experience. I will say, it’s important to know your faith. It’s important not to shy away from the questions. But I need advice from Catholics who grew up in that culture. It’s a really scary feeling. We’re just winging it.”

  “What is this craziness?”

  “It must be interesting to be two only children raising a family of six children. What is that like?”

  She laughs. “Every day we look at each other and we’re like ‘What is this craziness?’. It definitely is a challenge for us but we get through.”
  I explain that I’m one of six and my husband is one of seven, and that when we became parents, I realized I had no idea how to raise an only child. Should I sit and play with him for hours on end? Did I have to arrange for play dates?

  Jen laughs. “Any time you think you have it locked down, God switches it up on you,” she says.

  Swords, Barbie castles, and a pub crawl

  “Do your children know about your blog?” I ask. “What do they think of it?”

  “Yes, they do, and in fact sometimes something will play out. The other day my son got a sword and knocked down his sister’s Barbie castle and he said, ‘You should write about that on the blog.’ I think they perceive that it’s a chronicle of their awesomeness.”

  “Were there any parts of the book that the publisher cut that you had really hoped to include?” I ask.

  “There were a lot of great stories that were really funny and that I thought would add color to the book. There was one story about how Joe and I were dressed up as clowns on a pub crawl and the police got involved,” she says. “But as I learned how to be a better writer, I realized you need to know your theme. If a story doesn’t speak to your theme, it has to go. Ignatius (Press) was amazing. They didn’t pressure me to cut anything.”

  Let’s cut to the chase.
  “OK, so it’s 5:30. You have nothing in the oven. What are you making for dinner?”

  “Oh, I love this question,” she says. “I actually have a great fish recipe. Since fish freeze well, I keep fish in the freezer. I’ll email it to you.”

  And she does. So here it is. Jen said she just puts all the toppings on when she places it in the oven.

  So now you have a new recipe, a book recommendation (if you’ve already read it, go read it again), and plans for a fantastic evening in D.C. in September.

  If I offered cappuccino and free babysitting, we could call this a full-service blog.

  Info on Jennifer Fulwiler’s visit to Washington, D.C.:
  Jennifer Fulwiler is speaking at St. John the Apostle in Leesburg, Va., on Sept. 26, at the Risk Jesus Conference in Woodbridge, Va., on Sept. 27, and at The Catholic Information Center on Sept. 29.

  (Note: This is a slightly abbreviated version of our conversation.)

  You might also be interested in the review I wrote of Jennifer Fulwiler’s book, Something Other Than an Ordinary Read.

One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both
Christine Engel
Booklist. 114.16 (Apr. 15, 2018): p3.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both.

By Jennifer Fulwiler.

May 2018. 240p. Zondervan, $24.99 (9780310349747). 200.

Fulwiler's funny, heartwarming book is a welcome addition to the canon of mom writing. An introverted atheist growing up, Fulwiler converts to Catholicism and eventually has six children. She's a writer at heart, too, and this book tells the story of her efforts to pursue her dream of writing while caring well for her family and being, as she describes it, open to what God wants for her family. So much of her story will especially resonate with parents: the naps abandoned too early, the familiar guilt when you finally do take time for yourself, and lots and lots of poop. Throughout the strife, though, Fulwiler points to an amazing amount of grace that keeps showing up just when she needs it. In spite of the disasters, readers will appreciate the reminder that even when they can't have it all, they can still have some very, very good things.--Christine Engel

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Engel, Christine. "One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2018, p. 3. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537267968/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=795f665a. Accessed 21 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A537267968

All in the family
Serena Sigillito
America. 219.2 (July 23, 2018): p46.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 America Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.
http://americamagazine.org/
Full Text:
Jennifer Fulwiler's new memoir, One Beautiful Dream, lives up to its wordy subtitle. Fulwiler's engaging, self-deprecating humor shines through as she recounts tales of family mishaps and shares insights into the Catholic faith, motherhood, the craft of writing and the unpredictable ways that God's grace works in our lives.

In Fulwiler's first book, Something Other Than God, she described the process of her conversion from an atheistic career-minded computer programmer to a devout Catholic and mother of six. In One Beautiful Dream, she goes meta, telling the story of how she came to write her first book. As the book opens, Fulwiler is pregnant with her third child, juggling children ages 1 and 2. Although she is often overwhelmed and exhausted, she finds peace and energy in writing. It is her "blue flame," "the passion that ignites a fire within you when you do it." When she is offered the opportunity to turn her successful blog, "Conversion Diary," into a book, however, she hesitates. "Not now, I reminded myself. Do what you need to do as a mom. Make the sacrifices. Get through it. This time will pass before you know it." Eventually, however, Fulwiler comes to realize that being open to life and having a large family do not mean that women have to put their dreams on hold for decades. Instead, she discovers that it is possible to use your God-given gifts and be a good mother at the same time.

Neither a self-help book nor a how-to manual, One Beautiful Dream nonetheless inspires self-reflection and offers concrete, practical lessons embedded within colorful stories and memorable scenes. Many of Fulwiler's deepest realizations come from her rejection of the false idea that we must be totally autonomous in order to be happy and successful.

Although the book is not aimed at only Catholic audiences and is never preachy, it will be especially thought-provoking and relatable for people of faith. Fulwiler's story demonstrates that beautiful dreams can become reality when you seek the peace and joy that comes with following God's plan for your life.

Serena Sigillito is managing editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute.

One Beautiful Dream

The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both

By Jennifer Fulwiler Ignatius. 240p $24.99

Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Sigillito, Serena. "All in the family." America, 23 July 2018, p. 46. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A549583270/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=41e11193. Accessed 21 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A549583270

Engel, Christine. "One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2018, p. 3. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537267968/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=795f665a. Accessed 21 Sept. 2018. Sigillito, Serena. "All in the family." America, 23 July 2018, p. 46. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A549583270/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=41e11193. Accessed 21 Sept. 2018.

• The Catholic Connection
  http://www.thecatholicconnection.org/?p=7604
  Word count: 708

  IN REVIEW: ONE BEAUTIFUL DREAM BY JENNIFER FULWILER
  FEBRUARY 02, 2018 JRINAUDO NO COMMENTS
  reviewed by Kim Long

  I confess I had never heard of Jennifer Fulwiler; family chaos, however, is somewhat familiar territory. I read a little bit about her and to be honest was, at my age, prepared to not only dislike her, but to actually disdain her as well. She seemed too good to be true. Plus I wondered if I had “aged out” of her target audience. In a word, NO.

  I read the first chapter and she had me. She was me. I had been her. In.
  So. Many. Ways. By page 25 she describes God coming into the lives of her and her husband. By her account she was a lifelong atheist and he a non-practicing Christian. Her descriptions are priceless and honest and endearing. For example, “God burst into our lives with all the subtlety of a neutron bomb.” I hadn’t heard it put quite that way before, but I have felt that sensation at times in my life.

  In the ensuing short, meaty and heartfelt chapters (not heartfelt like a greeting card, read here: honest, gritty, funny and poignant), Fulwiler maps the journey from active non-belief and practice to immersion into the Catholic lifestyle.

  In one chapter she tells of needing a vehicle that can accommodate their entire family with three car seats. Her husband, Joe, found a decent used mini van on Craigslist and they were $1,000 short. The money came to them, but the most interesting part was how – I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you these two recognize a blessing at 20 paces.

  There are always chapters I read multiple times in almost every book I have ever read. In Fulwiler’s book, it is chapter 10, in which she describes in graceful and honest prose the knowledge of a fourth pregnancy, making a literal hard right turn on the way home from the doctor’s office and into the parking lot of her parish church for a noon Mass where she entered as a bartering daughter and exited into a grace-filled moment.

  This book reads like a timeline, a roadmap, and a chat with the one friend who manages to get away with “telling it like it is,” because that friend speaks from experience. There is no judgment, just mutual lamentation and hope.

  As a lifelong believer, some of her angst is not my own. I have always believed in God, but not always in myself. Her chronicle, even though written from a different place in our timelines – she still having children, me still searching for crumbs in my now empty nest – resonated with me. She is cool, messy, brutally honest in her self-assessment, faithful and incredibly interesting. I have subscribed to her blog and plan to read her memoir, Something Other Than God.

  Intially I thought I was not the “right person” for this review. I am glad this book came to me and, with all books, I am a firm believer that books arrive at the precise moment God intends. My daughter-in-law is expecting her first baby in 10 weeks. This book will be a birthday gift for her. I think she will appreciate the author’s viewpoint and it will ease some of her anxiety about impending motherhood.

  If you are like me, past the childbearing years, this is still a wonderful read. If you are like my daughter-in-law, just setting foot on the parenthood trail, it applies. If you are like my friends Amy and Jessica who are mothers of many, take this book with you in the carpool line or the bathroom and make time to soak in the message Jennifer has for each of us!

  Jennifer Fulwiler is host of her own show on Sirius radio called The Jennifer Fulwiler Show on Channel 129. This book is published by Zondervan and is available for pre-order. Don’t wait!

  One Beautiful Dream is available to purchase from Zondervan and Amazon.com. It is available to borrow from the Slattery Library inside the Catholic Center in Shreveport.

• Helena Daily
  https://www.helenadaily.com/off-the-cuff/2018/5/24/book-review-of-jen-fulwilers-one-beautiful-dream
  Word count: 633

  Book Review of Jen Fulwiler's "One Beautiful Dream"
  MAY 24, 2018
  Jen's excellent storytelling abilities make you feel like your witty friend is on the couch, recapping her life to you in ways that might make you snort with laughter.

  Screen Shot 2018-05-24 at 10.31.56 PM.png
  By Katie Curtis

  For those who follow Jennifer Fulwiler on Social Media or listen to her on Sirus XM Radio’s Catholic Channel, you know that her newest book, One Beautiful Dream, takes you inside her journey to becoming the Catholic mother of six while publishing the story of her conversion to Catholicism.

  At its essence, Jen's book is about the cumbersome process of discerning one’s vocation – or in her case - vocations. While she felt called to be open to adding children to her family, and clearly saw that was a gargantuan task that she might already be failing at, she felt called to add another job on top of that – writing and sharing ideas.

  After she met an agent who thought her blog was something that could be turned into a book, her childhood dream of publishing a book was stoked. But in her characteristic humor she recounts the barriers that stood in her way, everything from her own guilt at doing something else while her kids were little, to judgmental babysitters, hysterical toddlers, and grave health issues around her pregnancies.

  But along the way, Jen learned some important lessons about what God has given each of us. Our dreams and our passions are signs that point to the work he created us to do. And when we do it and it brings us joy, then we can be very sure we are doing His will. She also shares that we can count on an unseen force labeled ‘resistance’ – coined by another writer, Stephen Pressfield, in his writer’s handbook The War of Art. Resistance is the voice in our heads that says we can’t do it, that there are so many other better people out there who can do it better, so we might as well not even try. It’s personal and it is energy-zapping, and it wants to stop us from doing God’s will or anything creative or good.

  In so many of her crossroad moments, it is the sweet voice of her husband, Joe, that reminds her who she is, what her dreams are, and how they can make them happen. The book is ultimately a beautiful portrait of a marriage and a family that sacrifices in order to support each other. Her revelation is that families should chase after their dreams together, as a team. It is an idea that challenges the modern version of individualism that says you first have to be fulfilled before you can give to your family and many other modern notions and false beliefs that women may be wrestling with.

  Even though these lessons are ones we might have heard elsewhere, they come alive in the context of Jen’s life, and in her excellent storytelling abilities that make you feel like your witty friend is on the couch, recapping her life to you, in ways that might make you snort with laughter. She inspires by reminding us of the simple truth for our own life that is echoed in so many parables in the Bible: He gave us gifts, and he wants us to use them. Not hide them or bury them or put them under a basket. And that we can find a path to happiness and peace just by listening and looking for the signs God planted in our hearts and in the hearts of the other people in our lives.

• Celebrate Life
  https://www.clmagazine.org/post/review-something-other-than-god-how-i-passionately-sought-happiness-and-accidentally-found-it/
  Word count: 487

  REVIEW: Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It
  by Jessica Kenney 2015 Mar - Apr

  “All that we call human history . . . [is] the long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” This quote from C.S. Lewis inspired the title of Jennifer Fulwiler’s emotional, funny, and tear-jerking memoir. The story of her conversion to Catholicism had me riveted, and her experience of the divine reminded me of my own. Although I wasn’t an atheist while growing up, I did suffer from the same anxiety about “What’s out there?” that Jennifer did.

  If you like Erma Bombeck, you’ll love Jennifer’s cheeky and entertaining stories. At times I giggled, and I cried too, when she described her first confession experience. Do you remember what your first confession felt like? For me, it was as if the world had been lifted off my shoulders. Talking to God this way is a great gift of the Church. During her struggles with belief, Jennifer discovered she has a life-threatening blood condition made worse by pregnancy. Told by her doctors to use contraceptives or get sterilized, she agonized over being forced to choose between following Church teachings and protecting her health—only to realize she had been sold a bill of goods:

  I had considered using contraception while on Coumadin, which would have made it tempting to believe the lie that we were “safe” from pregnancy. . . . And the only reason . . . I had actually clued in [to] the obvious-sounding but little-known truth that if it really is that dire that you not have a baby, you need to avoid the act that creates babies—was because I’d been living according to the rules of the Catholic Church. These rules—the moral guidelines that I once railed against—had just saved me from potential disaster. (p. 211)

  Jennifer’s struggle with her stance on abortion was one I also suffered. In my younger days, I felt no real allegiance to God or His teachings. And when I entered the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program to become a Catholic, I kept telling the priest that although I would never have an abortion myself, I couldn’t say no for someone else. As happened to Jennifer, it took extensive reading to reach my “aha moment.” When she realized that babies the same age as her son in utero were being murdered, she felt the same anger that I did.

  The Lord works many wonders, and Jennifer’s conversion story is one of them. He reached her, and through her He will convert many more souls. Amen.

  Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It, by Jennifer Fulwiler; Ignatius Press; 2014; 248 pages; $19.51 (hard cover), $14.92 (e-book), $31.45 (audiobook on CD)

• Katisciba
  http://thecatholicwife.net/review-something-other-than-god-by-jennifer-fulwiler/
  Word count: 670

  Review: “Something Other Than God” by J. Fulwiler
  The

  –

  I always peruse the bookshelf before walking into adoration and almost as often, I grab my favorite stand-by about Divine Mercy; but that day, sitting there waiting for me was a shiny new copy of Something Other Than God by Jennifer Fulwiler. The author herself is renowned for her own site Conversion Diary, as well as her presence on SiriusXM; and her year-old release had been at the top of my To Read list. There in the chapel, I snatched up the book that would paint Catholicism in an entirely new light for me.

  Jennifer Fulwiler’s book is an autobiographical account of her very gradual conversion to Catholicism, which began when she was a small child. She grew up without any concrete understanding of Jesus and felt a thrilling confidence the day she declared herself an atheist; but despite her delight in assuming this non-religious label, Jennifer was never at peace. In fact, she was shaken to the core wondering what lie beyond death, certain there had to be more to life than a final ending. Through her natural curiosity and incessant questioning, coupled with extensive researched and an equally inquisitive husband, God led Jennifer to Catholicism where she has become a light for a very particular brand of Christians – the skeptics.

  The nature of skepticism is hesitation, and when it comes to the tough stuff of Catholicism – transubstantiation, Natural Family Planning, the saints, abortion – so many people ask not so they can dive into the same beliefs, but because they think we’re nuts. And who can blame them? From the outside looking in, Catholicism looks like a strange land.

  It’s this strangeness which underscores the fact that one of the most compelling elements of any conversion, especially Fulwiler’s, is the educated Catholic. How many of us know the hows or whys of our profoundly deep religion? If an atheist, agnostic, or Protestant asked why we genuflect on the right knee, why we ring bells during the Consecration, or the purpose of fasting during Lent, would we be able to answer coherently? Issue by issue, Jennifer explored the details of the faith, initially determined to find an illogical flaw to send Catholicism crashing down and ruled out in her mind; but issue by issue, she encountered people who not only knew the reasons for traditions and beliefs, but loved them as well. Additionally, these educated Catholics Jennifer found wanted her and her husband to be part of their communities and parishes. The Fulwilers were received with love and mercy. It’s the combination of education, love, and mercy that invited Jennifer out of a dark confusion into a thrilling and hopeful life.

  Despite its being autobiographical, Something Other Than God reads like an enticing fiction and I found myself stealing an extra minute here or there to read as much as I could. What makes it so interesting is that Jennifer and her husband had the same questions Catholics and non-Catholics alike have about the faith, and they address each one – particularly issues of family planning and contraception. It’s this informative quality that is one of my favorite aspects of the book; simply put, it’s fun to read and clears any confusion a reader might have about why we Catholics believe what we believe. What I found especially fascinating, too, was walking with someone who gradually and intellectually arrives at Catholicism with joy and peace. The enthusiasm for Catholicism she and her husband discover and share within their marriage is contagious.

  Truly, I have only positive notes to make about Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God. Picking it up was an experience that brightened my understanding of the Catholic faith and invited me to become a student of God’s mercy. Pick up a copy from Amazon, The Catholic Company, or the St. Joseph’s chapel bookshelf.

• Epiphanies of Beauty
  http://www.epiphaniesofbeauty.com/2014/06/23/book-review-something-other-than-god-by-jennifer-fulwiler/
  Word count: 548

  by Christine

  BOOK REVIEW: SOMETHING OTHER THAN GOD BY JENNIFER FULWILER
  SUMMARY
  Popular blogger and atheist turned Catholic, Jennifer Fulwiler, relays her conversion story.

  REVIEW
  I love – I mean really really really love (for real) conversion stories. I was even tempted to purchase this book because I LOVE conversion stories. Also, I read Jennifer’s blog and find her funny and engaging and witty. Sadly, this didn’t translate well into the book.

  Let’s start with the good. “Something Other than God” reads like a cross between a novel and a memoir. This, I enjoyed very much. Also, at times Fulwiler’s voice comes through loud and clear and it’s enjoyable. In chapter 22, for example, while she relates a bit about her experiment with the Church’s moral code:

  My experiment of living by the Church’s moral code was going amazingly well. An entire week had passed, and I had not murdered anyone or started a single unjust war. (146)

  Funny! Endearing! This is the “Something Other than God” that I loved reading. There is quite a bit of this to read, too. Fulwiler shines when she is laughing about herself and it is in these moments she is the mantilla wearing rap fan we have come to know and like on her blog. She also shines when she is telling us the bits of her life that include her husband and her children.

  It’s unfortunate, then, that the book doesn’t carry this same style of writing throughout. This is most evident in the first few chapters. Here the writing was often stiff and extraneous: filler. What’s more, some of it I didn’t find quite believable as it read more as an adult’s reflection on childhood experiences than as the actual recounting of these same experiences. Later in the book this same thing happens: the narrator Jennifer reflects on what the character Jennifer is doing. Sometimes this winds up breaking down into a whiny, self-centered narrator who hasn’t quite convinced us that this is not “her” anymore. No doubt this is an editing issue (as is the consistent misplacement – throughout the entire book – of the comma after quotation marks!), but it is an issue.

  Ultimately, the story ended well – and not just that Fulwiler converted to Catholicism. The novel “conversion story” had a very sigh-when-I-close-the-book ending which I found to be fulfilling.

  Taken as a whole, “Something Other than God” is…a conversion story. I know there have been allusions made between this conversion story and that of C.S. Lewis or St. Augustine (to her credit, I haven’t seen Mrs. Fulwiler claim this). These allusions are illusions. Think of your Catholic friend recounting to you the many and varied ways God reached down from heaven and touched her life. Each instance was an instant. Each moment fleeting until that one glorious Easter Vigil when the Truth culminated into Beauty and everything was made clear. Its a fabulous story, your friend’s conversion. Jennifer Fulwiler’s conversion story is fabulous in that same way. What conversion isn’t?

  My final verdict: not quite a beach read.

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