{"id":920,"date":"2008-12-03T09:40:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T09:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html"},"modified":"2008-12-03T09:40:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-03T09:40:37","slug":"and-another-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html","title":{"rendered":"And another hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Loosely speaking.<br \/>\nI think the most astonishing visual experience I had on this trip took place on the journey back, from Rome to Gatwick, when, at about 6:30 in the morning, we started flying over the Alps.<br \/>\nNow, some of you world travelers have done this many times, but allow this neophyte to marvel a bit.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve flown over the Rockies, but this was different, partly because of the difference in landscape, and partly because of the time of day.<br \/>\nWhat is it you see from this vantage point?<br \/>\nPure white undulating peaks pinched from the earth. As you approach, the shadows shift and what seemed like it might be flat reveals itself to be a massive ridge.<br \/>\nIt is all searing white and shadows.<br \/>\nMost fascinating, though, are the lights. The lights of settlements, of hamlets, of small towns. In the early morning half-light, they glimmer soft yellow, clustered on the side of a mountain, streaming through a valley.<br \/>\nThe lights reveal a living map of the unexpected places people choose to settle and remain. Being deeply averse to cold, I cannot imagine settling in this place, despite the magnificent vistas, and marvel at those who do. Why are they here? Why would you stay?\u00a0 Even more curiously, why would people have come here hundreds of years ago when it would have been so much more difficult to leave?<br \/>\nAs we continue to fly, and the mountains do not stop, I think of centuries of traversing this landscape. Passes were found, routes were established, and it was not just the traders and adventurers who made the journey. To get from here to there, this is what you did: you packed up your animals, tightened the wheels on your carts, wrapped yourself up, and you started riding, knowing at some point you would have to walk.<br \/>\nMy journey high above the ancient way is marked by comfort. Odd, then, that it prompts a nagging sense of unease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Loosely speaking. I think the most astonishing visual experience I had on this trip took place on the journey back, from Rome to Gatwick, when, at about 6:30 in the morning, we started flying over the Alps. Now, some of you world travelers have done this many times, but allow this neophyte to marvel a&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-920","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>And another hill - 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\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And another hill - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Loosely speaking. I think the most astonishing visual experience I had on this trip took place on the journey back, from Rome to Gatwick, when, at about 6:30 in the morning, we started flying over the Alps. Now, some of you world travelers have done this many times, but allow this neophyte to marvel a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-03T09:40:37+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":"And another hill - 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\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"And another hill - Via Media","og_description":"Loosely speaking. I think the most astonishing visual experience I had on this trip took place on the journey back, from Rome to Gatwick, when, at about 6:30 in the morning, we started flying over the Alps. Now, some of you world travelers have done this many times, but allow this neophyte to marvel a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2008-12-03T09:40:37+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html","name":"And another hill - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-03T09:40:37+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-03T09:40:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/and-another-hill.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"And another hill"}]},{"@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\/920","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=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}