Letter From New York 12 24 14 Free to celebrate Christmas…

December 24, 2014

It is Christmas Eve. To me, Christmas was all about Christmas Eve. It was the night when I was a child that my godparents and their brood arrived at the house and we opened presents, had a great dinner. They departed and then we opened the rest of our treasure trove of presents. And then, when I was old enough, we headed off to Midnight Mass at our parish church.

I’ve fond memories of those Christmases and so I always associate Christmas with Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. On Christmas Day, we opened what Santa had left us, which wasn’t much. I always knew the big presents came from my parents. It didn’t bother me that much when I found out Santa wasn’t real.

I’ve been up since early this morning, cooking and prepping. I’m having my friends Lionel and Pierre, Larry and Alicia. We’ll gather at six for cocktails and then dinner and then they will head off to their respective Christmas services while I clean up and prep for tomorrow as I am cooking Christmas Day, too. And I’m giving a cocktail party on Friday night. And then, whoosh, it will all be gone.

All day I’ve been in a good mood, listening to jazzy Christmas Carols and cooking pumpkin soup and prepping sweet potatoes. The ham is in and cooking away and there is a wonderful smell to the house as you come in. In a few minutes, Lionel and Pierre will arrive and we will exchange presents and then Pierre is off to sing at the Catholic Church. Later, they will both sing at the Episcopal Church.

Tomorrow, in the morning, young Nick and his partner, Beth, and their child, Alicia, will come over. It’s a bit like extended family and their presents are nestled beneath the tree and it will be exciting to watch the almost three-year-old Alicia open her gifts. She is into “Frozen” [what three year old is not this year?] so I got her a “Frozen” comforter for her bed as well as a stuffed animal that needs a home and someone to love it and an ornament for their tree with her name engraved on it. It’s fun to shop for a wide-eyed little girl. It’s really the only opportunity I have to do it.

It is a grey, rainy day and, actually, quite warm. The temperature scraped fifty degrees this afternoon. It wouldn’t have surprised me if this were the kind of weather Joseph and Mary might have trudged through on their way to obey the order of Caesar Augustus to be counted. I’m not sure what the weather is like in Bethlehem this time of year so I did what anyone does when they want an answer to a question. I googled it. In Bethlehem it is fifty-five degrees and clear.

So not that much different, except we’re having rain.

Thousands are gathered there tonight for Mass. In Rome, Pope Francis prepares to say his Midnight Mass after giving his Curia a scathing review this week and while he calls for attention to the thousands of Christians displaced because of ISIS.

Christians are now, once again, probably the most persecuted of religions. They, and other minorities have had to flee their homes, where they have lived since New Testament times, because of the campaigns waged on them by the Islamic State.

In Africa, Christians are living in fear of Boko Haram, which is setting about to create its own Islamic State in Nigeria.

It is strange to think of Christians as being persecuted but that’s the fact of the matter. In some parts of the world where they are a minority, they are being relentlessly pursued.

It is a sobering thought as I return to my festive cooking. Everything at dinner will need to go like clock work because all my guests need to be leaving for their Christmas celebrations. And they are free to do that.

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Letter From New York 12 23 14 The Eve of Christmas Eve

December 24, 2014

It is the eve of Christmas Eve and I am freshly back from my friends Lionel and Pierre’s where I had a wonderful Shepherd’s Pie. They will come tomorrow at three for us to exchange presents and then again at 6 for dinner. I am cooking pumpkin soup, a salad of haricot verte, followed by ham, yams, asparagus and other things.

I have spent the whole day shopping for the next three days as I will be cooking for the next three days. I have organized menus and purchased food and prepped as best I can for the Holidaze.

In the background Christmas sounds are playing. I have a couple of presents left to wrap but I’m done. And I’m glad I’m done. It feels good to have organized it all and to have it all [almost all] wrapped and underneath the Christmas tree.

It all feels good. The chatter of all the troubles in the world seems far away.

Who knows the reason the Internet in North Korea went down? Was it a “proportional” response on our part or was it just an accident? I don’t know though I am suspicious.

It might have been the Chinese, who seem to be getting a little annoyed at the North Koreans. Not a good thing – the Chinese are about the only people who actively prop up the North Koreans. Oh, sorry – Putin has invited Kim Jong-un to Russia.

But Putin has his own troubles. The falling price of oil and the collapsing ruble and those pesky sanctions against him are causing a bit of a free fall in the Russian economy.

THE INTERVIEW, the silly movie at the heart of so much controversy, may actually get a limited release in some movie theatres. Something praised by the White House. Congress would like to have some screenings so they can see what all this ruckus is about and they might get it in the New Year.

Outside my window, at the desk where I am writing, Christmas lights burn.

On Friday, I will have a “Boxing Day” party. It’s the day after Christmas and according to some, it was the day the servants got to celebrate in England after having spent the last couple of days dancing on the whims of the Lord and Lady of the Manor.

It was also, according to legend, the day children in England went around with boxes to collect alms for charity.

But, whatever, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day in the Commonwealth countries and I have given many a Boxing Day party and this year will be doing one for about twenty folks, neighbors and friends, a chance to continue the celebration of the Holidays.

I shopped for that too, today. Never in my life has my grocery basket so overflowed! Never have I been so grateful to gather together the elements of celebration. It feels good to be gathering folks to the Cottage for the Holidays.

I love bringing people together at Christmas; it is a natural outgrowth of my upbringing when it seemed that every Christmas our house was full of friends and relatives, celebrating and feasting.

So let us celebrate and feast! Let us sing the songs of Christmas. Let us drink [carefully or take a cab!] and make merry. It is Christmas.

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Letter From New York 12 22 14 On Christmas Quiches…

December 23, 2014

Today was devoted to Christmas quiches. Somewhere along the line it has become a Christmas tradition that I make Christmas quiches for my friends and neighbors and so today I made them, eighteen in total, supported by the faithful Nick. Since early this morning I was prepping for the day, slicing ham, dicing mushrooms, shredding cheese, steaming asparagus, putting together all the various things that were to make up this year’s Christmas quiches.

Christmas is upon us. I have a couple of presents to wrap but other than that I am done. It feels good.

It doesn’t look like it will be a white Christmas here in Claverack. Probably very damp but not white. And that’s okay. I celebrate that it’s not Minnesota cold. But then Minnesota is not as cold as it used to be.

In fact, according to some, Minneapolis is going to be a very temperate place in the next century, the product of climate change. Wine growing regions are moving north.

These are extraordinary things, this shifting of climates. It is all changing. The old timers here tell me that winters here in Claverack are nothing like they used to be – oh, so much milder. I always say that winters here are the way we hoped winters in Minnesota would be but never were.

It is a tolerable winter.

So we won’t have a white Christmas but we’ll have the spirit of a white Christmas even if it is not.

My car is full of quiches, ready to be delivered tomorrow. I feel a bit like Santa. Instead of a sleigh I have a red Toyota Prius and I am Santa like as I drive through Columbia County dispensing my bounty.

The first reviews have been good and I’m glad. Of the eighteen quiches three went home with young Nick and he texted me that they were great! And I’m glad.

It is satisfying to give gifts that were made in my kitchen. It feels like a throw back to Christmases past, when gifts were made at home and shared with friends and neighbors – not an orgy of mall shopping or online binging. Though I have to say, thank God for online shopping! Most of my gifts came through online buying rather than personal shopping. So much more convenient!

Most of the presents I am giving this year have been purchased online and shipped to me. The convenience is staggering. And then, in the name of my family, I made a donation to the USO.

Most of us Tombers don’t really need anything so I gave to a cause that I thought really needed something. I haven’t always agreed with our government’s military decisions but I support the men and women who have answered the call and gone and fought for us in our foreign adventures.

I can’t imagine anything harder than spending Christmas in a foreign land without your family and friends. So I tried to do something about it by donating to the USO.

Christmas is upon us. Tomorrow I will go and do a massive Christmas shop for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both of which will be celebrated here at the cottage with old friends.

May all of us be celebrating those days with old friends and loved ones.

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Letter From New York 12 21 14 Io, Saturnalia!

December 21, 2014

There was a light dusting of snow when I woke this morning, just enough to return a little Christmas magic to the countryside. It was a usual morning for me, coffee and the NY Times and some household chores. Right now I am doing a load of napkins in the washing machine so I have an ample supply for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners.

Things have been organized to go to the cleaners including a couple of tablecloths that need pressing to bring them up to Holiday snuff. Recipes are scattered across the dining room table to put together the shopping lists for the next few days. Everything is humming along.

Household cleaning is scheduled for Tuesday and the marathon of quiche making will happen later today and tomorrow. Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, is sleeping on the settee by the front door, quietly waiting for them to come back from church. Jazz versions of Christmas carols play on Pandora.

It’s a pretty good day at the cottage, a soft, sleepy sort of day.

While wanting to shut the world out this morning, I didn’t do it. The NY Times beckoned to me too much and I curled in bed with coffee and my iPad to read the major stories of the day.

They’re not very Christmasy.

A man who had posted on social media that he was out to kill some policemen gunned down two police officers in Brooklyn in an execution style killing. He had just shot his girlfriend in the stomach, who will live. He headed to New York from Maryland and had committed the murders by the time the warnings came to be watching for him had arrived. He said they were retribution for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. He then committed suicide in a subway station.

Kim Jung-un, the North Korean dictator, is threatening us. I’m not sure exactly what he’s threatening us with but he is threatening us. He’s not happy the United States doesn’t want to take him up on the offer of a joint investigation of the Sony hack. So he is threatening us with mighty mischief.

So, the world is still a pretty bleak place out there but Christmas is arriving and thoughts of the Holiday fill the world. Thank goodness!

“Io Saturnalia!” used to be the greeting that filled Roman streets during the weeklong festival they celebrated in the middle of winter, starting around December 17th. They exchanged presents and ate and drank to excess. Sound familiar? Christians co-opted the festival in the 4th Century AD, turning it in to Christmas. Since some Christian historians believe that Christ was actually born in the spring, early Christians moved the date up to coincide with the popular Saturnalia.

Our Puritan forefathers didn’t celebrate Christmas. Apparently you could get in a lot of trouble with them if you had any parties around December 25th. It was a very naughty thing to do.

But the Puritans couldn’t hold down a good party; Christmas became legalized in the 1680’s and America was off and running in making this Holiday uniquely its own. It was a frenzy of gift giving, not to everyone’s appreciation. People were lamenting the commercialization of Christmas back in 1904. People have been lamenting that ever since.

This year I have pulled back some and focused on a few good friends and relatives. I make quiches for other friends and my neighbors. It feels good to be simpler this year. It feels good to be giving presents from my kitchen.

There was, of course, splurging on a few people. For them, I managed, I think, to find things for them that would both be useful and, hopefully, treasured in years to come.

I’d like to think my Christmas gifts would speak to the recipients in years to come, fostering enjoyment and recollection even when I am not present in person.

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Letter From New York 12 20 14 Christmas is happening…

December 20, 2014

It’s been a pleasant day in Claverack.

I woke early and went down to the Farmer’s Market. I’ve developed a passion for the Sea Salt and Onion cashews offered by one of the vendors there. Last week they were already sold out of them by the time I arrived so I wanted to be sure I got my fair share today. The market is now closed until the first weekend of February. I was successful, nabbing three containers, enough to last until they reopen. I ordered pies for Christmas from David, the pie guy. He’ll deliver them on Christmas Eve morn.

After collecting my mail, I went down to the Red Dot for a bite to eat, visiting with Alana, who is the proprietress of the best joint in Hudson. Finishing that, I went home and met Nick, who keeps the house humming and we did our Saturday chores.

Returning to town, I met my friends Larry and Alicia at Ca’Mea for a Saturday lunch and we organized our Christmas plans.

As a cord cutter, I don’t have cable so I didn’t see the last episode of The Colbert Report. Larry did and it was nostalgic for him. He was President of Comedy Central when it launched. He suggested I look for it online as the best moments are immortalized there.

It appears I will be hosting Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and hosting a cocktail party on Boxing Day, December 26th. I will be cooking until I am cross-eyed.

But I love it. I love the hustle bustle of the Holidays and love having folks to the cottage. I am working on my menus right now. What I’ll have Christmas Eve and what I’ll have on Christmas Day and what will be the appetizers I serve on Boxing Day. I thrive on entertaining.

Tomorrow I will be grocery shopping for the annual Christmas Quiches I make as gifts for my neighbors. Monday will be devoted to making them and Tuesday to delivering them. It’s something I’ve done for the last ten years and is part of the Christmas tradition of Claverack Cottage.

The world is settling down for the Holidays. Obama has gone off to Hawaii. I’ve curled up at the cottage. The trains are packed with people beginning their Christmas Holidays and I’m glad I got here early on Friday. Every train going north on Friday was sold out with holiday revelers finding their way to where they were going.

Once upon a time I did research for a trio of Hollywood writers, way back in the days when I first arrived in Los Angeles. So a bit of Hollywood trivia: today is the anniversary of the premiere of “Flying Down to Rio” the first Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film. Who knew? Now you do.

It’s that kind of day, a day for fun facts and trivia. The world is a mess but let’s today focus on the fun things today. Christmas is a few days away.

The cafes and restaurants of Hudson were deserted today as I am sure every store and mall was jammed with folks doing their last minute, desperate Christmas shopping.

While the restaurants were empty, there wasn’t a parking spot available on Warren Street, the main drag of Hudson. I’m sure the shops were jammed. We’re in the countdown.

I have a couple of things to wrap but I’m done. It feels good.

It all feels good, this Christmas time. Let the world for a few days swirl away without my thinking too much about it.

Christmas is happening.

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Letter From New York 12 19 14 Tis the season for cyber warfare and hope…

December 19, 2014

Earlier today I returned from New York. I settled in and built a fire in my Franklin stove, put on Christmas Carols and, at this minute, can see the flames dancing in the stove and can look across the creek. All the snow has melted but there is still beauty in the land, the flowing water and the occasional squirrel that darts across the deck. There was a woodchuck that occasionally meandered across but he seems to have gone to ground for the winter.

The first day of winter is Monday and Christmas quickly follows. It looks like I will be doing a great deal of entertaining and I’ll spend part of the afternoon working on menus. It seems I’ll be having people on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, December 26th.

I’m looking forward to it. It always feels fun when the Cottage is full of people and there’s laughter and merriment. There is no need for me to go back to New York now until the second week in January so I have a long stretch of time here.

As I was riding the train up the east side of the Hudson River, the FBI declared North Korea the source of the Sony Pictures hacking disaster. Just before I sat down to write, President Obama held his end of year press conference and stated that pulling THE INTERVIEW was a mistake.

It is a hot topic. A few weeks ago, it actually seemed a little funny albeit sad. Now it is a full blown international incident. In my weekly phone call with my friends Medora and Meryl we had a spirited conversation about it. Medora thought it was the official end of the world as we know it. We all knew that what we surrender to the digital world is no longer ours but now we know it in a very visceral sense.

It’s one of those moments when something changes and everyone is aware of it, a tectonic shift in the way we see the world. Cyber warfare is here and here to stay. It has been here, we’ve known about it but now it has come to our backyard. It is a sobering thought.

There are lots of things to be sober about. The planet itself is beautiful but dangerous place with storms and earthquakes and other natural disasters. And we humans inhabit it and we have a cruel tendency to violence, a fact born witness to every time we open the newspaper or watch a newscast. We humans do terrible things to one another.

But we also do amazing things for one another. An unidentified man walked into a Walmart and plopped down $50,000 to pay off layaway purchases for people he’d never met. In times of crisis we line up to help one another.

It is these things I am going to focus on these last few days before Christmas. Not the other things. Tis the season of hope and that is what I am focusing on, hope. Hope for our world, hope for myself, hope for everything.

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Letter From New York 12 18 14 Things groundbreaking and things not so funny…

December 18, 2014

When I was in high school, THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA was required reading in one of my English classes. I was an adolescent fan of Hemingway though I preferred THE SUN ALSO RISES to THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. But it did cause me to think of Cuba, the Cuba of Hemingway, before Castro. I wanted to visit but I couldn’t because travel to Cuba was prohibited.

After a pleasant evening at the Red Dot with a varied group of friends, I retreated home to sleep, waking this morning to the news that President Obama was moving to normalize relations with Cuba, which has lived under draconian sanctions from the United States. As far as I have been able to tell, fifty plus years of this policy has resulted in almost no effect. A Castro still rules in Cuba and the island limps along. It is a treasure trove of ancient, classic American cars.

The decision to normalize will be hotly debated. Some of Cuban descent feel this is a betrayal; some welcome the change. GOP lawmakers threaten to make it as difficult as possible to accomplish.

It will be interesting to watch this change. My friends, Larry and Alicia, have just returned from Cuba where they were on a government-approved excursion. They will be among the last that will have seen the “old” Cuba – the Cuba before this pronouncement. It will all begin to change now, slowly but surely and, in my opinion, in a change that is long overdue.

The Pope facilitated the long overdue change; he wrote letters to both Obama and Raul Castro encouraging normalization. And they listened. A prisoner exchanged helped.

Fifty years of sanctions hasn’t done much good. It’s about time to try a new policy, don’t you think?

There were other items in the news that caught my morning coffee attention.

New York, to my surprise, has banned fracking, the controversial process by which natural gas can be extracted from the earth. A group that opposed fracking had a spontaneous celebration in Manhattan this morning outside some state offices.

The news was full of chatter about the scrubbed release of THE INTERVIEW. One reviewer who saw it back in October felt that Rogen/Franco could become the Hope/Crosby team for Millennials.   We might never know now.

The trail of evidence for the Sony hacking caper leads right back to North Korea having ordered it.

While I have found some aspects of the Sony hack story amusing, much of it is deadly serious. And not very funny. It has called into question the sensibility of the executives who agreed to make the film. More than one person in Hollywood is asking: what did they expect from making a movie about assassinating a real life dictator who has a known reputation for unpredictable actions of a nasty kind? And who has nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-Un said it was an act of war to release the movie and he has attacked.

Now the question is: what do we do about it? Do we start the first cyber war? Probably not. Whatever it is thinking, the Obama Administration is holding its cards close to the vest right now. And probably keeping its options open. There have been daily briefings at the White House on the affair.

The reports out of Hollywood that I have been reading have been scathing toward Sony and its actions from start to finish.

I wish I could find some amusing turn of phrase to end today but whatever it might be, it is eluding me. North Korea has, apparently through proxies, attacked a major business and brought it to its knees. It is unprecedented.

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Letter From New York 12 17 14 Up to ourselves…

December 17, 2014

It is dark and drear here in the Hudson Valley. The temperature is relatively mild but seems much colder due to the damp. Across the creek, wisps of fog play through the barren tree branches. Almost all the snow has been wiped away by the steady days of rain.

After my morning coffee, I built a fire and put on jazzy Christmas music and sat down and wrote out my Christmas cards, taking them to the post office and sending them off on their way. It feels like a night to curl up with a good book but I won’t be doing that until later; I am off to the Red Dot tonight with friends for a mid-week get together.

While grey and drear in the Hudson Valley, it is peaceful in Claverack. I feel far from the madding crowd and am grateful that I am. I have one more trip into the city tomorrow for a Holiday party and then I’m here until the New Year begins. I’m looking forward to that.

It will be another extended respite from the world.

And that will be appreciated. It’s not all quiet out there in the world.

The Sony hacking situation seems to get worse, with violence threatened against theaters that show THE INTERVIEW. Most large theater chains are “suspending” their showings of the comedy. Warnings were given to stay away from theaters because there might be 9/11 style attacks.

JUST in from CNN is the news that Sony is canceling the December 25th release of the film due to the threats.

Current and former employees are suing the studio over the damage while they are scrambling to protect accounts by changing passwords as fast as their little fingers can type.

Other studios seemingly aren’t pleased with Sony and aren’t rushing to its defense. Is it every man for himself?

Helen had the face that launched a thousand ships. Sony has the picture that seems to be sinking a studio.

There are other exciting things happening that I will delighted to explore from the comfort of Claverack Cottage. The Rover has detected methane on Mars, one of the building blocks of life. What will Rover find next? I’m hoping that it is a Christmas discovery.

And I will bow my head today and say prayers for the children who were murdered in Pakistan. The country has declared three days of mourning post massacre and has called meetings of all political sides to deal with the Taliban threat. In the last decade, the Taliban, driven on by their absolute belief that they alone are right, have killed 50,000 Pakistanis.

Absolutism is hard to contradict and elusive to defeat.

Before leaving for the Red Dot, I will turn on my Christmas lights. North America burns brighter in December and January with all the Christmas decorations and the difference can be seen from space.

We are perhaps combating the psychological darkness with Holiday lights, defying the literal and figurative night with joyful decorations. I would like to think so; it has been a hard year for many and I know lots of people who would like to see 2014 disappear in the wake of their lives.

It’s not easy though. The end of the year is a marker but doesn’t magically change anything.

That we have to do ourselves.

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Letter From New York 12 16 14 Life goes on…

December 16, 2014

My life has a certain rhythm these days. I wake. I have coffee. I read the NY Times headlines on my phone. Today, I woke up in the city and did the same.

Last night was a pleasant evening, dinner with my friend Robert at one of our favorite haunts, Thai Market at 107 and Amsterdam. We exchanged Christmas presents. And talked about what was happening in the world.

All day Robert had been wrestling with new computer systems at his office and had not really kept up with what was happening in the world. He knew there was a hostage situation in Sydney but did not know the details and wanted to so I filled him in on what I knew from following events during the day.

We laughed and joked with Cathy, the bartender, who usually only works on Saturday nights now that she is a full time teacher. She is off to Christmas in the Turks and Caicos.

Life goes on, despite any terrible events around us, near at home or far away, we keep on living our lives. As were the people in the Lindt Café in Sydney, just living their lives when Man Haron Morsi came in with a shotgun and held them hostage.

As Robert said last night, you don’t know when something will happen. Life is fragile and tenuous and we are surrounded by a myriad of things that could go fatally wrong on any given day. But we go on living our lives.

While tragedies happened, the State Legislature in New York, made yogurt the “Official State Snack.” I missed that until this morning; it was one of the items in the daily New York briefing that is digitally delivered by the Times. Apparently, it made the State the butt of jokes by David Letterman and others.

Apparently there was a ban on ferrets in New York City. Mayor DeBlasio has taken care of that one.

We have now a law prohibiting people from having their picture taken with big cats. What defines a big cat I wonder?

And I’m delighted to know that sparklers have been legalized in New York State though not in New York City.

While world events were taking place, important laws were being passed here in New York State, including a prohibition on piercing or tattooing your pet. Didn’t even occur to me that anyone would do it but apparently there are those who did. They are now banned.

And while I am sipping my morning coffee in Manhattan, the Taliban has killed over a hundred people, mostly young children, in a raid on a school in Pakistan. The ruble continues to fall, the market is making a bit of a recovery from its swoon over tumbling oil prices, traffic continues to roll through the streets of Manhattan and we’ll have rain this afternoon with temperatures scrapping 50 degrees.

Life moves on.

Rather than hide out in the apartment, I am going to tempt the fates and mosey over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an afternoon in their galleries. Then I will have dinner with my old friend, Mona Tropeano, before rumbling back north to the little cottage on the creek to finish my Christmas cards.

Life goes on.

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Letter From New York 12 15 14 Terrorists or madmen…

December 15, 2014

Last night, my friends Lionel and Pierre came over for dinner – asparagus soup, mashed sweet potatoes, baked squash and a sirloin fresh from the farmer’s market. We were just into the soup course when his phone made a noise; a news alert was coming in.

The alert was that hostages had been taken in Sydney, a drama that would be played out into the morning today. Lionel is from Sydney originally and he excused himself to phone his family to make sure none were involved. All were accounted for and far from the scene.

I arrived in New York this morning and went into the Acela Club at Penn Station as I had a bit of time before I was to meet my friend Mary Dickey for lunch. My arrival at the Acela Club coincided with the moment that the Sydney police stormed the café and I watched events unfold, live and in real time.

It seemed a bit surreal, to be seated in the Acela Club, sipping a coffee, while half a world away this drama was being acted out, in a city I once knew fairly well and which I loved.

Little was known at the time and much is yet to be revealed, even though the crisis is over. There are two dead plus the gunman, an individual who identified himself as a Muslim cleric. He had some of the hostages hold up what appeared to be a black and white Islamic flag in the windows of the Lindt Chocolate Café, an unlikely seeming place for a hostage crisis.

Turns out he was quite the fellow, this Man Haron Monis. He had served community service time for pleading guilty to sending threatening letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers, calling the deceased “child killers.” He called himself a spiritual healer and had allegedly sexually abused some of those he was supposed to be healing and it seems that he was being linked to the murder of an ex-wife. He apparently had no religious training.

A website by Monis or his supporters claim that all the allegations were trumped up.

Some believe he was committing suicide by police, a thing not unheard of. He certainly seemed to have gotten the attention he wanted. From what I can gather, it’s believed in Sydney that he wasn’t really a terrorist but a deranged man.

Whatever the truth, two innocent people are dead.

In a gesture that was affecting, citizens of Sydney began a twitter campaign to combat a potential Muslim backlash. #illridewithyou was the campaign’s hashtag, offering to ride with Muslims needing to get around Sydney on public transportation. It has since gone viral. It seems very Australian.

My eyes watered up when I read the story.

Australia is an “open and generous” country said Prime Minister Tony Abbott and that is how it has struck me and it has struck me as a place removed from the violence of our terror stained world. But it is not. No place is safe from terrorists or madmen, whatever Man Haron Monis turns out to be.

In Pennsylvania, as I write this, a manhunt is ongoing for an individual who apparently killed six members of his family in a domestic dispute. That was happening as I was sitting in the café above the Fairview Market on Broadway, having a delightful lunch, chatting with Mary about the fallout from the Sony hacking scandal.

It is on days like this that I treasure the peace of the countryside and am grateful for the respite it provides from the terrors of the world in which we live, counterbalanced by the incredible human generosity of those who took the #Illridewithyou viral.

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