{"id":598,"date":"2008-04-30T20:41:18","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T20:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/04\/a-personal-message-from-me-to.html"},"modified":"2008-04-30T20:41:18","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T20:41:18","slug":"a-personal-message-from-me-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/04\/a-personal-message-from-me-to.html","title":{"rendered":"A Personal Message from Me to…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…the USPS employee or contracted worker located somewhere between northern Indiana and Nashville, TN.
\nAhem.
\nI think I’ve figured it out. I think I see where you were coming from.
\nThere you were, unloading or loading a truck, or maybe guiding packages down a belt or something and you see this fairly good-sized box. It’s marked “media mail” so maybe you thought, “Ah-ha! DVD’s! Video games! A box full of ’em!”
\nSo then you took out the box-cutter you’ve got on hand for just these occasions, slit the bottom of the box, let the contents fall into whatever bag you’ve also got on hand for just these occasions, whistled and waited for the next box.
\nI suppose you really didn’t actually have a chance to handle <\/em>the box and see that it weighed a lot more than it would if it were, indeed, filled with DVD’s or games.
\nBecause, in fact, it was filled with,you know, books.
\nAnd speaking of books, I HOPE YOU ENJOY THOSE 40 COPIES OF PROVE IT CHURCH <\/em>MEANT FOR KIDS BEING CONFIRMED ON\u00a0FRIDAY <\/span>\u00a0IN NASHVILLE. I PARTICULARLY HOPE YOU ENJOY READING THEIR LITTLE NAMES INSCRIBED IN EACH BOOK.
\nYeah. Enjoy. And while you’re at it, prove this.<\/em>
\n(Okay, okay. Here’s hoping the criminal, upon opening the stash of 40 stolen books about God takes it as a message and changes his or her ways. There’s a purpose for everything. Got it.)
\n(And yes, it was insured. And yes, the box was indeed delivered empty, with the bottom neatly slit open.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…the USPS employee or contracted worker located somewhere between northern Indiana and Nashville, TN. Ahem. I think I’ve figured it out. I think I see where you were coming from. There you were, unloading or loading a truck, or maybe guiding packages down a belt or something and you see this fairly good-sized box. 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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. 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