I just withdrew 300 Euros from an ATM machine. I’m pretty confident that I’ll have enough cash for more than the next week. Given the uncertainty of ATM’s in village France, I want to be prepared. My transaction is cold and efficient. I don’t need the ATM to say “Good evening Monsieur, how can I help you tonight?” I need accuracy; I need security.

I’m struck by how I could get by without cash. Since I booked almost all of my lodging ahead of time. Booking, Airbnb, hotels (I’ve learned not to put the whole web address) all accepted my credit card back in Atlanta. Easy. Anxiety-free. Assured of the cost. In France, I notice that in restaurants everybody pays by card. In the supermarche, everybody pays by card. I get some looks of frustration when I pay a 20 Euro grocery bill with a 50 Euro note. The attendant doesn’t have enough change so he has to get the cash from another attendant.

I receive needed but also unsolicited kindness in the “commercial” French world.

When my Australian universal charger blew a fuse, and when I discover that it uses irregular fuses, I fail in several attempts at finding the right fuse. So, I buy a new charger. Later that morning, I realize that it doesn’t fit American electronics. I go back to the store to return the charger. The clerk says “We don’t do returns.” Argh. Seeing the frustration, she continues “But I’ll call the manager.” Voila, the manager allows me to return the charger! A bit of commercial kindness.

I return to my task of finding the right fuse for my universal charger.

Later, I finally find an electronic store that had fuses. However, since it is a Sunday morning, Ben is simply filling in for the full-time staff. He can’t find a fuse to fit my Australian Walk About (love the brand name). Rather than dismissing me, he makes two phone calls. The second person remembers which cabinet and which drawers hold irregular fuses (from French perspective). Voila, he inserts the proper fuse!

One afternoon I’m walking in a drizzle. Im facing any traffic that might use this small country road. I’m getting tired, but I can see the church steeple a mile or so up the road. I’m getting closer to my nights lodging.

All of a sudden a car stops on the other side. “Pilgrim?” “Oui, Via Francigena.” In French English she says, “Would you like a ride to the next town?” “Oh ,yes ,please.” She drops me off in front of my BnB. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Oh, and her name is Marie. Maybe my Mary has said a prayer for me today!

One last incident.

After walking one morning for a mile behind Esther (a Dutch woman walking the Via Francigena that I’ve met), I’m almost ready to catch up with her. Again, all of a sudden a car stops. A man and a woman step out. When I get to the car, they hand Esther and then me a small wrapped package. “Here is a quiche for each of you.” “You are probably going to get hungry.” They weren’t wrong. Although they’ve lived in France for six years, she grew up in Minneapolis; he grew up in England. Nancy and Jason live in the village we had just walked through. As hosts for pilgrims in their house, they know the difficulty of finding food. They had driven to another village to buy us the quiche. How nice can people be!

We live in a massively commercialized world. No getting around that reality. There are always financial transactions. The Apples or the Home Depot’s of this world aren’t going away. The financial corporations which manage our 403B’s hopefully do a decent job.

Maybe I have Grandpa Jones’ blood in me. As a man who owned and ran a small country store, he was a good, small-time, capitalist. He provided for his wife and daughters: he provided for his neighbors. He bought and sold goods, sometimes items from local gardens. During the depression years of the early 1930’s, his financial ledger shows lines through many folks names. He simply provided the goods, but he realized that he would never be paid. Like him, I accept our capitalist rules and practices.

There are inequities in our financial world. There are casualties to our commercial world. I don’t know how to react in detail and confidence to those realities. Who does? Yet, we can have some important face-to-face experiences. Experiences of kindness in the world of financial transactions. Experiences of unsolicited gifts which go against the rules.

My experiences don’t solve our commercial problems. But, maybe in a way, these experiences remind me of each other’s humanity. They remind me that I and others are not simply consumers, not simply walking ATM cards. The experiences remind me why I should be kind, why I should be moral, in the first place! Thank you unknown clerk, Ben, Marie, Nancy and Jason!