Why I Think You’ll Like Jennifer Fulwiler’s ‘Minor Revisions’
Sooo…Jen has a reality show that debuts tonight. It’s called Minor Revisions.
While Jen found it a little bit awkward to tell you about this new mini-series of hers, I’m tickled pink to tell you why I think you’ll love the series. She gave me a little sneak preview since we both engage with atheists and we both are converts. We have other things in common: We both are fascinated by science, we both have a lot of little kids, and we both have a fondness for Texas. She lives there, I grew up there. She hates the scorpions that invade her house; I hate the spiders that compete for mine.
Anyway, here are three things (in true Jennifer Fulwiler bullet point style) that I think you’ll like — no love! — about her mini-series ‘Minor Revisions.’ These are things that I did not expect, pleasant surprises.
1. There are pictures of her as a little girl. I love those kind of pictures. Like so many people, when I read Jen’s blog, Conversion Diaries, and when I read her commentary on current events and other things at National Catholic Register, I connect with her personally. I understand her, I am pulled in by her perspective and pushed to think about it more deeply. I sometimes feel as though I might call her up and invite her for coffee until I remember that we live about 1,750 miles apart. Seeing pictures of the young Jen Fulwiler, the bright young atheist who wasn’t afraid to ask questions and read about new things, and who seems to have always had a keyboard at her fingertips, gave me a fuller appreciation for who she is. Childhood pictures are so endearing.
2. You get to meet her husband! I’ve only really seen him in the short clips on Jen’s blog dressed in a banana suit, but he is very handsome in his business suit sitting at his lawyer-ly desk. Joe talks about the early days of conversion and how the young family set out to find a church, narrowing it down to the “richest church in Austin” or the “prettiest church in Austin.” I cracked up watching Jen watch him as he talked about it. He did all this research to find a few churches, and after Jen attended them, she walked out and said, “No.” I can so relate! My poor husband could probably share a laugh or two with Mr. Fulwiler. Jen may be the only person in the world who posed more questions to her husband than I did during the conversion process. Every answer revealed a million more questions. If you were touched by Jen and Joe’s “Five Years Later” story, one of the most popular posts on her blog, you’ll enjoy the segment where they talk about their conversion together.
3. I have long been curious about Jen’s father. I know he is atheist, and that he raised Jen as an atheist. It’s obvious in her stories that she is extremely fond of him and all that he taught her. (As an aside, he served as a Special Forces HALO instructor, a training my husband also completed, and something I cannot imagine ever doing.) I have often wondered if the relationship was strained because Jen converted, but then I realized that it probably is not because Jen is so honest and humble. After I got over my self-righteous back-patting and found a little humility, I realized that my conversion taught me to appreciate my non-Catholic family members more for all the right and true foundations they embrace. Her father is clearly a man of integrity, honor, and intelligence, such admirable virtues for anyone to hope to attain, and seeing them together was beautiful thing.
In the first episode of Minor Revisions, Jen has a mini-debate with her father about religion, faith, astronomy, the Big Bang, and what kind of evidence he would need to know God exists. They have it in front of a telescope in an observatory. (You’ll have to watch to find out why they were there.) While the conversation was frank, it is a good example to everyone that you can have these discussions and still care about each other. How ecumenical.
Pope Paul VI said in his 1964 encyclical on unity and the Church that our dialogue should respect the dignity of other people. We should never use even the slightest bit of coercion to evangelize, just as Christ and His Apostles never used coercion and let the persuasive power of truth speak for itself.
Our dialogue must be accompanied by that meekness which Christ bade us learn from Himself: “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness. What gives it its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth, shares with others the gifts of charity, is itself an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language, makes no demands. It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity. (Ecclesiam Suam, 81)
After a healthy debate on issues that can often leave people angry with each other, they hugged, and concluded an enjoyable outing together. Something her father said about Jen really stuck with me though, and I want to point it out so that you watch for it. Although he does not share her beliefs, her father said that he is proud of Jen for her commitment and sincerity in her Catholic faith. “She’s not being a ‘just-in-case’ Christian,” he said, “she’s into it 100%.” Jen and her family do not go to church “just in case” there’s a God and they might have to answer for it; they go because it is the center of their lives. What a good reminder that how we live speaks more loudly than what we say.
If you watch the first episode tonight, I would love to hear your thoughts. Blessings, Jen, to you and your family. Thanks for sharing your lives with us!
Minor Revisions is a three-part special that will air on December 13, December 20, and January 10, all at 8 PM EST (7 PM CST). It starts tonight, and you can watch it online live here. It will also air on the NET network in the NYC area (TimeWarner Ch 97 & Cablevision Ch 30), and it will be available as an on-demand show for Verizon FiOS subscribers. Though there may be reruns, it won’t be archived online, so be sure to catch it live! More info here.
Category: Personal
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Hey there! (tried to sound Texan just now, wife and in-laws trained me)
I hope you don’t mind if I ask a long winded question.
The extremely intelligent atheists and former atheists I know have frequently echoed the question of Bertrand Russell: God, if you were real, why didn’t you reveal yourself more clearly?
This morning while reading the Philokalia, I saw a brilliant depiction of how the evil spirit corrupt our thoughts and lead us to sin. The author wrote: The demonic spirit can never make us do something against our will, or force us to think in a specific way. The demon presents an image to our imagination, just as he did to Jesus, trying to tempt Jesus in the desert. The person can either entertain the image and attach himself to it, which literally burns the sin into the person’s neural patterns and trains the person to desire the sin. Or he can say “no thank you, this is not for me” which our Lord did three times.
Very intelligent people can comprehend this yet find it hard to practice because they think too hard. The most educated among us are capable of the most horrific evil.
They can’t just say about an unwelcome image: “no thank you, this is not for me.” Somehow their education and inquisitive outlook makes them even more vulnerable to think about it, to wonder, and thust makes them more vulnerable to temptation.
Children and people who are simply not cut out for the life of the mind don’t really fret about the logic of demonic influence. [Let the little ones such as these come to me!] They don’t conceptualize it as “oh yes, so there’s satan, and I understand that I should not grant my attention to this phantasm lest I become inordinately attached to it.”
No, children and people of very simple faith know how to say “nope, that’s not for me, stay away!”
My point, I guess, is that atheists and former atheists in my life tend to be extremely gifted, and I sometimes wonder if that great intelligence is an impediment to belief precisely because it drives them to ask more and more questions. And this is coming from someone who loves the life of the mind! So don’t get me wrong. I’m simply wondering if inquisitiveness makes it harder to filter the evil one who wants nothing more than for us to die in sin.
As I grow older, I have come to envy those with the simplest faith. The ones that don’t need every question answered. If my plane is going to crash land, I’d like to sit with my seat belt buckled and listen obediently to every single word the flight attendant utters, no questions asked, thank you very much! Still, knowing me, even then I’ll sit there wondering, hmm, what’s all this about head down on the lap, what are the physics of that anyhow?
So, seemingly off topic, however I admire atheist converts so much, especially you Stacy, and also Jennifer F. I think I’m almost wondering out loud, have you ever wished you could just say “yes Lord, I have no further questions on that matter.” I can imagine it could be very re-assuring. I think I understand why Jesus wanted the children to be near him.
??
Jeff, you provoke thoughts that I have become surer of recently.
“In God there exists the most perfect knowledge…..But sense is cognitive because it can receive images free from matter, and the intellect is still further cognitive, because it is more separated from matter and unmixed, as said in De Anima iii. Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality as stated above, it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge.” – Summa Theologica, Treatise on The One God (Q14)
“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Gen 3
A high degree of intelligence can be a burden socially (as in your flight example) and in our view of life. Isn’t it understandable that the intelligent questioner would find it harder to submit to God when he/she is TEMPTED by the deception that new knowledge is a way to be equal or near equal to God , but more SEPARATED? Complete submission can only be possible if he/she understands that all knowledge comes from God and that receiving it is only sharing, not creating. Because we are like God we can be tempted by the desire for that magnitude of power. Hopefully we then will share (teach).
The words “tempted” and “separated” have foundational meanings in Christianity and I believe are foundational in this question.
Rebroadcasts?
Due to illness I missed this.
Info on reruns/rebroadcasts would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Julie,
I’ll make sure to stay on top of that. Jen said there would be re-runs. She says here that info about re-runs will coming soon!
http://www.conversiondiary.com/2012/12/7-quick-takes-friday-9.html
The show hash tag on Twitter trended big last night! (Translation since I’m new to Twitter and understand that may sound like gibberish: There were a lot of people watching and tweeting.)
Julie,
I just saw this at Leila’s blog.
http://netny.net/minorrevisions/episode_schedule.pdf
(http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2012/12/quick-takes-including-benedict-prophesy.html)
Aaaannnd! Julie,
Look! http://brandonvogt.com/revisions-youtube/
They put it on YouTube because the servers crashed last night. So many people were trying to watch!
Stacy, I figured that is why I could not load the web site. Your recommendation to your vast audience probably is at fault.
When I was in Texas I was asked this:
“Do you know what ALL is?”
”Yes, of course. It is everything.”
“No, it’s what you put in your car.”
Jeff,
Yes, much to think about.
(In Texan: I’m thankin’ on it.)
I thought about it a lot last night and today, but I don’t think my departure into the dark abyss was because I was inquisitive or intelligent. It was (to be raw-ly honest) because I was impatient and arrogant. It was hubris. There may have been some sincere search for truth, which is why I was attracted to science, but I pursued it to appear intelligent and inquisitive, not because I actually was. I thought religion was stupid, for simple, dumb people, and I tossed it aside like a used toy.
Listening to someone like Jen’s father, I don’t relate at all. I wasn’t anything like him – thoughtful, honest, accepting. I was very young, but still, I did not possess any of his patience and real intelligence.
NOW, that I converted (really should say, am converting more each day) I feel young and able to appreciate the beauty of the simple truth. If you even saw a picture of me 15 years ago compared to now, I look younger too. I was aged past my age back then. That unrepentant sinful time in my life was a prison, one I am so grateful to be out of. The more I learn, the more I am humbled and the more I am grateful — and admittedly, the more I get frustrated with people behaving the way I used to behave.
I’ve learned that the desire to learn is given us by God, it’s a reflection of how the Father conceives the Word as an act of the intellect, the internal activity of knowing and wanting to be known. We all have that in us too, but if we seek knowledge without seeking God, we will never be satisfied. It is futile.
The same goes for love and how the Father and the Son breathed forth (spirated) the Holy Spirit together as an act of love, giving themselves as one, completely over as an act of the will to the other Person, the Holy Spirit. We all want to love and be loved, but if we seek love without seeking God, again, we will never be satisfied. We will still long for something we are missing, even to the point of desperation.
So simple, yet so beyond comprehension. I do believe that some atheists are much closer to God than some of the rest of us.
Stacy, I just finished watching Jennifer’s show. You wanted comments.
First, her father seems to be an old fashioned atheist. Not like the obnoxious ones we have now who claim that religion is destroying civilization. He seems content to not know for sure, probably anything. This first glimpse of someone cannot be all revealing, but this is my impression. The effect of his atheism, if any, can only be known by a much closer look, closer than maybe even Jennifer can get.
She is very personable and funny, captivating to listen to. It is a first episode and the rest may get deeper into conversion from atheism. I hope EWTN will pick this up. I’m looking forward to the rest.
Conversion stories and life changing stories are not always dramatic. If you like the people I think their story can have an impact. I think, like on your Blog, the fact that you are not a crazy person screaming about sin and redemption causes people to get interested and either try and talk you out of your beliefs or pursue a conversation that is of mutual interest, if not agreement, forgetting the ones that just swear. You also offer lots of Catholic information.
When a person can know that another person who exhibits intelligence and sanity believes something to be true, the thought can then enter the mind, “Could there be something to this?”. Voila, a lifelong pursuit! You cannot know for sure the extent of the effect you or Jennifer have. When I told one of our choir members that the choir sounded especially good that day and added that I know they don’t get many compliments, she answered, “We do it for the Lord anyway”.