{"id":3801,"date":"2006-03-23T22:35:14","date_gmt":"2006-03-23T22:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html"},"modified":"2006-03-23T22:35:14","modified_gmt":"2006-03-23T22:35:14","slug":"thanks-a-lot-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html","title":{"rendered":"Thanks a lot, people"},"content":{"rendered":"

None of you told me that in the last <\/em>episode of Lost<\/em>, Sawyer was reading….Lancelot<\/em> by Walker Percy. No, I had to go read this synopsis to find that out!<\/a><\/p>\n

Fascinating. Lancelot<\/em> is the story – well, actually the confession – of a man who had murdered his wife by burning down their house. Like any synopsis that fails to do the book justice. It’s difficult and at times repulsive. But, as I have written before, one’s response to the whole book shifts on its axis with the last couple of lines – the last word spoken by the priest who is listening to Lancelot. <\/p>\n

Quite frankly, it’s another meditation on living life without transcendence and absolutes (unless you count ego and selfishness as absolutes.) <\/p>\n

Are you there God? …Everything is Permissible….<\/em>and now, to mull over…<\/p>\n

\n
\n

One of us is wrong. It will be your way or it will be my way.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes. <\/em><\/p>\n

All we can agree on is that it will not be their way. Out there.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is no other way than yours or mine, true?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n

Is there anything you wish to tell me before you leave?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fade to black.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

None of you told me that in the last episode of Lost, Sawyer was reading….Lancelot by Walker Percy. No, I had to go read this synopsis to find that out! Fascinating. Lancelot is the story – well, actually the confession – of a man who had murdered his wife by burning down their house. Like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThanks a lot, people - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thanks a lot, people - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"None of you told me that in the last episode of Lost, Sawyer was reading….Lancelot by Walker Percy. No, I had to go read this synopsis to find that out! Fascinating. Lancelot is the story – well, actually the confession – of a man who had murdered his wife by burning down their house. Like…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-03-23T22:35:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thanks a lot, people - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thanks a lot, people - Via Media","og_description":"None of you told me that in the last episode of Lost, Sawyer was reading….Lancelot by Walker Percy. No, I had to go read this synopsis to find that out! Fascinating. Lancelot is the story – well, actually the confession – of a man who had murdered his wife by burning down their house. Like…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-03-23T22:35:14+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html","name":"Thanks a lot, people - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-03-23T22:35:14+00:00","dateModified":"2006-03-23T22:35:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/thanks-a-lot-people.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Thanks a lot, people"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}