{"id":6343,"date":"2005-12-15T14:17:21","date_gmt":"2005-12-15T14:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html"},"modified":"2005-12-15T14:17:21","modified_gmt":"2005-12-15T14:17:21","slug":"kindness-of-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html","title":{"rendered":"Kindness of Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A reader writes, in regard to the <a href=\"http:\/\/amywelborn.com\/bookstore.html\">Saints&#8217; book:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 0.8em\"><em>I purchased your Book of Saints online recently (from a Canadian bookseller) as a gift for my niece.&nbsp; I must admit, I did so because it was quick and easy to do so, and I needed an extra book to qualify for free shipping.&nbsp; I knew of course that it would be reliable, but, you know, just a book.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<div><em><\/em><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 0.8em\"><em>Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I think it&#8217;s really exceptional.&nbsp; Over the years, I&#8217;ve picked up a number of saints&#8217; books for my own kids.&nbsp; Some were too babyish and others too mature.&nbsp; But yours, as Goldilocks might say, is &quot;just right.&quot;&nbsp; Beautifully laid out, and well-told stories.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 0.8em\"><em>The only book I have that has survived from my childhood is a book of saints my aunt gave me one Christmas.&nbsp; I hope my young niece recognizes that this one is also a keeper.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<div><em><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">How kind! Thank you very much. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A reader writes, in regard to the Saints&#8217; book: I purchased your Book of Saints online recently (from a Canadian bookseller) as a gift for my niece.&nbsp; I must admit, I did so because it was quick and easy to do so, and I needed an extra book to qualify for free shipping.&nbsp; I knew&hellip;<\/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-6343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kindness of Strangers - 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\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kindness of Strangers - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader writes, in regard to the Saints&#8217; book: I purchased your Book of Saints online recently (from a Canadian bookseller) as a gift for my niece.&nbsp; I must admit, I did so because it was quick and easy to do so, and I needed an extra book to qualify for free shipping.&nbsp; I knew&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-12-15T14:17:21+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":"Kindness of Strangers - 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\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kindness of Strangers - Via Media","og_description":"A reader writes, in regard to the Saints&#8217; book: I purchased your Book of Saints online recently (from a Canadian bookseller) as a gift for my niece.&nbsp; I must admit, I did so because it was quick and easy to do so, and I needed an extra book to qualify for free shipping.&nbsp; I knew&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-12-15T14:17:21+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html","name":"Kindness of Strangers - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-15T14:17:21+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-15T14:17:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/kindness-of-strangers.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kindness of Strangers"}]},{"@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\/6343","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=6343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}