Of course when you are paying so much for organic groceries, you do not have much money left over to buy a new winter coat.

That’s why I shop for my clothes in consignment shops. So on my way to pick up my two young Chatterings from school, I threw our car into park at a meter in front of my favorite neighborhood resale establishment. (The owner, Alison Houtte, actually has a book on fashion and consignment shopping coming out later this month).

Realizing I had given myself only five minutes to browse, I created in my mind’s eye an exact picture of the coat I desired. I always do this before entering thrift stores, and I have success with the method about sixty percent of the time.

I said to myself, “I want a long, heavy wool coat with a deep lapel and some kind of environmentally-correct fur at the collar.” It would be wrong of me to say this was a prayer, but in a loose sense it was. I went in, quickly sorted through the thirty old coats on display, and was about to give up when I saw my coat–the coat!–on another rack: it was everything I wanted and it fit me exactly. It even matched my beloved Russian hat that I purchased in the same way one year ago.

Since there was no tag on the garment, the saleswoman had to call Alison (who doesn’t know me, by the way). As she did this, I took a deep breath and thought to myself: “This is going too well. It’s a vintage Perry Ellis. She’ll say $200.” But lo, when she hung up the phone, she smiled and said, “Ninety-six.”

I even had the cash.

Why do I ask you to accompany me on this shopping excursion in a blog about spiritual inquiry? It took me about six different thrift store trips to find a soft suede coat for my eleven-year-old son (great deal at $27), so all my forays into the realm of used clothing don’t go quickly. But for many years, New Age thinkers like Louise Hay of Hay House, Shakti Gawain, Wayne Dyer, Carolyn Myss have instructed seekers to “ask for what you want,” the theory being that when you apply yourself to a quest with full intention, with specificity and visual plan, you’ll get what you desire eventually. That’s why you have to be careful with what you wish for.

But if this were always the case, everyone would be able to wish or pray their way out of cancer, right? Clearly, that doesn’t happen. Could it be that I only remember the moments when my intentions were clear, and I just lucked out? Am I too quick to confuse lucky coincidences with real miracles? I can’t tell you. Maybe so.

Yet in times like these, I’m in the universe’s flow. I feel united with everything–the car, the store, the coat, the saleswoman happy for me, the boys at school waiting, wondering why I’m late again.

“Oh guys, guys, I found a coat,” I say, absolutely jubilant. And then I model it for them.