Jennifer Fulwiler's book, "Something Other than God" was just what I needed to jump-start my summer reading. I'm actually going to email my priest and suggest this be the book they distribute to all of the parishioners and visitors next Christmas. It has given me new eyes -- perfect for stepping out into this new season with a fresh perspective. "Something Other Than God" is engaging and life-changing, and examines the Catholic Church through the eyes of reason and faith.
It's also a very approachable book. My 14-year-old daughter picked it up within hours of me setting it down, and finished it later that night.
A friend loaned me the book after I mentioned watching -- and loving -- this video of Fulwiler's journey to discover what Mary would look like in today's world. (If you are a woman, just watch the video. You will thank me -- especially if you are a woman at all questioning how you are being asked to live out your faith and vocation amidst your own individual circumstances. My favorite line was from Fulwiler's friend's spiritual director: "The Church is clear about what constitutes sin: every failure to love, that's sin. But the positive the Church leaves wide open. God wants us to be free to use all of our intelligence and all of our gifts to follow where He is calling us. The Church should be the place of the greatest possible experience of true freedom.")
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| A candle my children recently lit at Mary, Queen of the Universe Church in Orlando, FL. The following pictures also come from this beautiful church. If you ever get a chance to visit, confession is available almost all day, and the gift shop is extensive! |
I took the book with me on a recent family vacation, but didn't get a chance to open it until the plane ride home, when Nick fell asleep for a blissful two hours.
Once I started this book, I could barely put it down until I'd finished it. Fulwiler was raised an ardent atheist, and her story tracks her slow conversion to Catholicism.
Hers was a leap of faith accompanied by extensive and relentless study and reason. I loves this book for the compelling way it shares with others the very thing that led me to make the Catholic faith truly my own: The Church has reasons for its teachings. Reasons that resonate with both my mind and my heart. Reasons supported by history and by logic.
As much as our world may want to contend there can be as many truths as there are people, logic dictates there ultimately can be only one Truth. Fulwiler's journey describes how someone least likely to ascribe that Truth to the Catholic Church finally did, but only after having the doors to all other options close.
Fulwiler's book is ideal for people finding themselves in a similar search for Truth. It's equally ideal for someone like myself, a devout Catholic nevertheless a bit burdened by life, asking God for help stripping away those things holding me back from being closer to Him. All of those things she tried to fill her life with in order to not notice the emptiness there without God's love? I'm guilty of allowing some of those same things into my life -- and I should know better.
Fulwiler's story ultimately is one of courage and of Love. As much as she sought Truth, He clearly sought her more, and with the most enduring patience. Her journey also was not without loss. Fulwiler and her husband gave up much, but gained so much more. Most importantly, they found something we all desire: peace.
Let me know if you decide to give "Something Other Thank God" a try. I would love to hear your thoughts about the book!
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe: I find such comfort in discovering her in almost every church or chapel I visit. |
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