YOU NEVER NOTICE

WHAT KIDS NOTICE

[I like to tell a story for these Kids’ Masses - so this is a story I wrote last night. I noticed in the gospel for this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time A that Jesus asked for a coin - and asked about the writing on it - and then gave us a teaching and a message. I noticed that the gospel story never says whether Jesus gave the coin back. So all that gave me the idea for this story.]

You never notice what kids notice.

Joshua sat in the exact middle of the Fourth Grade classroom - the exact middle seat - in the middle aisle. It was an assigned seat, but he loved it - because he could see so much in front of him. He could see what the other kids were doing, He could see what Miss Evensong, his teacher, was doing. He noticed those teachers who peeked through the glass of the Fourth Grade classroom door as they walked by - and which teachers never peeked in.

When he grew up he wanted to be either an airport flight controller or a C.S.I. agent.

You never notice what kids notice - but Joshua noticed an awful lot.

He noticed that his teacher Miss Evensong always came to school on Wednesday with her blue bag - but on other days, you couldn’t guess. He noticed that the principal, Mr. Larson was the only adult male in the school who wore white athletic socks every day - like - every day.

You never notice what kids notice.

Joshua noticed by the second week of school that the new kid to their school - James - the kid in the second seat - second row - near the front door never had any money - when it came to having money in your pocket for some gum or candy - or when the teacher was taking up a collection for a family of one of kids in the school who lost their home in a fire or what have you.

Joshua’s dad gave him and his sister Jessica a 5 dollar allowance every week. He once overheard his dad telling his mom that when he was a kid - they never had an allowance - because the family was so poor - and at times he was envious of all those kids who got an allowance. So he swore that when he was a dad, he would make an effort for his kids to have an allowance - even if it was a quarter a week.

Every Sunday after Mass - when they got home - Joshua’s dad would give him and Jessica an envelope with their 5 dollar allowance. One Sunday Joshua asked his dad if he could get his weekly allowance with 3 single dollar bills and 8 silver quarters.

His dad thought he might be saving the states quarters. His dad noticed that his son was a collector.

Now notice what Joshua did with those 8 quarters.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, every week, Joshua would put a quarter on James desk when nobody would notice - especially James. When the class was going outside for recess or lunch or what have you.,  he’d sneak the quarter under a book on top of James’ desk or under a piece of paper.

Joshua watched for James’ reaction the first time he found the quarter on his desk. James’ head went back and forth. Then he looked to the floor around his desk. Then he turned around to look if anybody noticed that he had found a quarter on his desk - under one of his books.

Joshua watched all this from the corner of his eye - making out that he was writing something.

James put that first quarter in his pocket - but at first he seemed to hesitatate. Maybe he was going to ask the teacher to ask the class if anyone had lost a quater. The next day came the same surprise - another quarter. On the third day with the third quarter, Joshua noticed a tiny smile on James face. Thursday came a shrug of his shoulder and a bigger smile on his face. On Friday, Joshua had to be extra careful, but he was able to put 3 quarters on James desk: one for Friday, one for Saturday, one for Sunday.

One day in the second week of doing this, Joshua noticed James going out the front of the classroom at a recess break, but sneaking back into the classroom through the back door in hopes of catching whoever might be doing this. Was he wondering if Miss Evensong did it? She had already left the room. He checked his desk sneakily - and there was no quarter there - yet.

That's what he did with 7 of the quarters from his allowance. There was one last quarter. Joshua put that one in the collection basket at Sunday Mass. [This being a sermon in church, I figured I had to put that detail into the story.]

Joshua noticed that James really enjoyed having some money in his pocket - some money to buy a treat or to make a donation for some kid in school who had cancer or what have you.

Joshua did this for almost the whole school year - and James never caught him or figured out who was putting those quarters on his desk.

Being in the exact middle of the classroom helped. Joshua could be the last kid out - some kids going out the back door, some kids going out the front door.

Why did Joshua do this?

Well, he liked it when he had money in his pocket - and he remembered what his father said.

Another reason - was a gospel story which he heard about in church. Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees: "Should we pay taxes or not?" Jesus asked for a coin. Then he asked whose image was on the coin . They said to him, “It’s Caesars." "Well,: Jesus said, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

This lasted from September till May the following year. One day Miss Evensong, their Fourth Grade teacher announced: "One of our classmates was moving to Tennessee." She pointed to James and said that his dad, who had been out of work for over a year, finally got a job down there. Everyone clapped.

Then Miss Evensong asked James if he wanted to say anything to the class. He stood up and said, “This has been the best year of my life so far. Thank you all for being so nice to me - and I want to thank whoever has been giving me quarters.”

The whole class clapped - but nobody understood what the comment about quarters meant - not even Miss Evensong.

Joshua was now back to his 5 dollars allowance. Surprise he then put those 7 quarters he gave away each week to James here and there around the school and around town.  He  knew kids loved finding quarters - even pennies at times.

But what Joshua never knew was something that happened 7 years later when James was in high school in Tennessee.

His class was talking about trust. The teacher brought up the topic because someone had stolen a dollar that was sitting on the top of the desk of one of the kids.

Starting from the first seat in the first row, the teacher went around the room asking the different kids, “Whom do you trust?”

When she came to James - who was sitting in the exact middle seat in the exact middle of the classroom, he said, “In God we trust.”

A couple of kids snickered at that comment - ready to make fun of James after class - that is, till he told the story about the mysterious quarters  each with  the words, "In God we trust" on them -  that  he kept finding on his desk every day for a whole year - way back when he was a little kid in the fourth grade - in some school way, way, way up in Maryland.