{"id":3882,"date":"2015-03-03T14:44:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T19:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=3882"},"modified":"2015-04-30T11:23:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T15:23:28","slug":"36590-freebies-is-it-a-miracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/36590-freebies-is-it-a-miracle\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#90: Lent 5-Freebies\/Is it a miracle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Strange things have happened to me during the past 4 days \u2013 2 merchants gave me free service.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There was a Home &amp; Garden show at the Cincinnati Convention Center. Jim thought we should go to research replacement windows for our 100 year old house. I agreed and assumed this would be free since the exhibitors were trying to sell their services. I was wrong. On the way he told me admission was $13\/person. Since this was an optional expenditure. I toyed with the idea of asking for a scholarship or discount. I knew this would probably be futile plus embarrassing to Jim, but I have little pride in such matters and figured it wouldn\u2019t hurt to try. When at the ticket counter, however, the clerk looked at us and asked if we had an AARP card because if so, one of us could get in free! We did have to pay for parking but I figured that was a transportation expense and we parked at a meter rather than the $10 lot thus cutting our cost in half (my half \ud83d\ude42 ).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3888\" src=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Days 365+90 DVD Lent\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent-300x297.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent-1024x1015.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Days-365-90-DVD-Lent.jpg 1549w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Today I went to pick up a DVD that I had ordered just before Lent. We wanted to transfer movie footage from a 16mm camera that my parents had taken 60 years ago to a DVD format to show at my mother\u2019s funeral next weekend. It was to cost $75. When I went into the store the clerk gave me the DVD but also read a message that said the film was so old, mildewed, and torn that the DVD was not up to their usual standards and I would not be charged anything for it. Wow! Again I hadn\u2019t mentioned my Lenten commitment or that it was for a funeral.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Days-357-Extra-Near-Death.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-1525\" src=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Days-357-Extra-Near-Death-150x150.gif\" alt=\"Days 357 Extra - Near Death\" width=\"127\" height=\"127\" \/><\/a>These two incidents may be coincidental but their proximity to my mother\u2019s recent death and another incident that happened today is uncanny if not miraculous.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The other incident happened on my way to church today. As I\u2019ve been reflecting about my\u00a0somewhat artificial commitment to not buy anything during Lent unless it is absolutely essential, I thought that probably I should also increase my almsgiving. (If you\u2019ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I am basically a very frugal person.)\u00a0I rarely give money to panhandlers. But I was reading one of Bishop Untener\u2019s \u201cLittle Black Book\u201d meditations this morning about the \u201cpoor poor.\u201d I decided that I needed to not just give to charitable organizations but to also loosen up and give money to a \u201cstreet person.\u201d The route I usually take to church passes the Cinti. Reds baseball stadium. Every time I drive by I see a\u00a0different man with\u00a0a\u00a0sign\u00a0next to the curb asking for help. I usually uncomfortably avoid eye contact and ignore the \u201cman of the day.\u201d I decided that during Lent I would give\u00a0some cash to\u00a0whomever was there when I drove by. I was ready. I had my bill. I looked for a man with a sign. It was cold and beginning to rain. No man. There was construction on the usual corner. Then I looked across the street and saw a man on another corner with a sign. I drove around the block and handed him the bill. I\u2019m now committing to do this each time I go to the parish during Lent. Ironic that this happens on my way to church, isn\u2019t it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, I don\u2019t know if Mom is lobbying merchants from beyond, or if the panhandler is Jesus in disguise and sending extra grace my way. Still I\u2019m choosing to think of my windfalls as meant for others and as the mysterious presence of God around me during this holy season.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s this got to do with being in solidarity with the poor? Read my next blog post, \u201c<a title=\"Why I'm not poor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=3899\">Why I\u2019m not poor<\/a>\u201d for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strange things have happened to me during the past 4 days \u2013 2 merchants gave me free service. There was a Home &amp; Garden show at the Cincinnati Convention Center. Jim thought we should go to research replacement windows for our 100 year old house. I agreed and assumed this would be free since the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[30,29,17],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buy-nothing","tag-faith","tag-intangibles","tag-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3905,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions\/3905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}