In case you’re new, I’ll go ahead and state for the record that my husband and I have very differing views on religion, spirituality and faith.

My husband is a very deep, philosophical person who has his own way of communicating with God. He has no respect for religion in any way, shape or form, and believes that every single problem in the world today can be traced to organized religion.

I am Catholic (ish), and believe that children especially should have a strong spiritual foundation in a church. I don’t necessarily believe that the Catholic church is the foundation that my son needs, and I’m hesitant to push him toward anything.

So I was pretty happy when Zion, with no prompting from either side of the spiritual boundary in our house, asked if we could go to church.

I am completely and utterly in love with the new youth director at my work {she is a Christian-Wiccan-Shaman who believes – here’s the short version – that everyone pretty much worships the same thing, but they do it in different ways}, and she had me sold on her new children’s church program the day half the congregation pulled their kids from her Christmas pageant.

{“We don’t believe you’re sending the right message about Jesus’s love,” they informed her. I said, “You pissed off the whole congregation? What time does children’s church begin again?”}

So Ms. Kaya and I had a long talk about the program last week, and whether Zion would fit in well with the other children. She said, “Well, let me just tell you what we did today, and you can decide for yourself. First, we had a yoga party.”

Seriously?

“I asked the children where God lives, and they all pointed to their chests and said, ‘in our hearts,’ and I said, ‘yes, in our hearts, and since God lives inside of us, what should we do with our bodies?’ and they said, ‘we should take care of them!’ and I said, ‘that’s right! and you know what a good way to take care of our bodies is? we can do yoga!’ so we did lots of cat, mountain and tree poses and talked about how God lives inside each of us.”

There really wasn’t much else to discuss at that point, because duh, of course we’ll be there. Mike protested weakly, and then agreed that I could give it a shot.

So we got up early this morning, got dressed, and drove like a bat out of Hades to make it on time. As we were running in the door, I handed Zion four quarters and told him to put them in his pocket. I sat down and explained that during his class they would hand a basket around asking for “offering” and when they did that, he needed to put his four quarters inside the basket.

{big, BIG source of contention in the church thing for Mike – church shouldn’t cost money, right?}

So throughout the morning I wandered in and out of his class watching the yoga poses, listening as they rang the gong for silence, singing the “Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in my Heart” song. Zion enjoyed himself immensely and it was over way too soon.

Daddy came to pick him up since I had to work, and when he arrived I said, “Ok, Zion, tell Daddy what you did in children’s church this morning.”

Zion happily relayed all the excitement – “We learned about treasures, Daddy. I am God’s treasure. I’m also a treasure to you and Mommy! And shells are treasures to snails because it’s their house. And sticks are treasures to birds because they build their nests out of them! And look – I made a treasure map with Mommy!”

It was all very exciting and positive and wonderful, and then Zion said:

“Why do they ask you for money?”

I stopped what I was doing and looked up. Mike was staring pointedly at me, and I burst into laughter.

Mike patted Zion on the head and said, “It’s to pay for the joy, son.”

I picked Zion up from school a few weeks ago, and as I entered the classroom Ms. Kelley said, “Sara, I have to ask you something. Does Zion talk to Jesus a lot at home?”

Uh-0h.

Alarms are going off in my head, and my brain starts seeing 4th-of-July-type fireworks. My first instinct is to deny everything – No Ms. Kelly, we do not sacrifice goats in the basement. At least, not since Zion learned to talk.

What could he have done to prompt this question?!?

“Sure,” I say casually, “he talks to Jesus sometimes. He calls it different things, though – sometimes he says he’s talking to the Universe, or making God-wishes.. it just depends on his mood.”

Now I am talking to Jesus in my head, praying this doesn’t end in a call to the Division of Family Services.

“Well, I have to tell you how precious your son is, Sara.”

Precious? Has she met my son?

“Today he was sitting on the floor in the middle of this sea of sound cards. I was sitting at my desk and I just happened to look up and I see him sitting with his eyes closed. So I lean in a little closer, and he puts his hands up in front of his face – ” she demonstrates, clasping her hands together – “and his eyes are still closed and he whispers, ‘Please, Jesus, please help me choose the right sound this time. It’s really important.’”

Now I have tears in my eyes (you know me, the goat-sacrificer) and a big goofy grin on my face, and she says, “I just wanted to go over there and give him a big hug and say, ‘Oh my gosh, Zion, don’t be so hard on yourself! You’ll get this!’ He’s just way too precious, Sara.”

If she only knew.

I received the loveliest phone call of my life this afternoon from Nevaeh’s grandmother – remember Nevaeh? Her birthday was yesterday.

So her grandmother, who is such a wonderful person, calls me to tell me thank you for the cupcakes and the gifts and she’s gushing and telling me that I should open a bakery because these cupcakes were so fabulous. I’m laughing and my face is red and I’m saying oh, come on, thanks but they’re just cupcakes, and she says Sara, you don’t understand, these weren’t just cupcakes, they were beautiful and delicious, and I’m not joking about this bakery thing – I’ll back you financially!

And I’m all, yeah, ok, let’s go there Miss Jackie. I guarantee you’ll regret that decision.

And then she says, “I just wanted to thank you for everything – it was so thoughtful, and it really, really made an impact on Nevaeh.”

And again, I say, “Oh, I’m so glad!”

But she says, “Sara, I’m serious. I think sometimes people don’t realize that the little things they do are actually a big deal to the people on the receiving end. This made Nevaeh’s birthday very special, but it also deeply affected her. I can’t thank you enough for this.”

Now I know what you’re thinking – ok, Sara, take the compliment and stop sharing it with the world, right? But I’m not looking for bragging rights, here.

For the last week and a half or so, I’ve been wandering around here in a stupor pondering the purpose of getting out of bed in the morning. I know that sounds dramatic and morbid, but seriously – you go through a lifetime of emotional craziness, die, and then what?

I believe that life is without purpose if you can’t make a difference to someone else, and lately I’ve felt that it’s almost impossible to make any kind of a difference in the world.

The fact that this woman made a very special effort to say thank you, my day was better because of something you did, was really huge for me right now. It made my day infinitely better. It was something really tiny, but it gave me enough hope to make it through the week without driving off a bridge.

So the reason I’m posting this is to ask anyone who might actually be reading this to do something small. I know, I know, it’s cheesy-pay-it-forward-type-stuff, but for me, it was still a really big deal.

And also, my husband made me feel guilty about yesterday’s post.

But really – it was mostly the “do something small” thing. I promise.

Today was Nevaeh’s birthday.

Now, we’ve discussed my five-year-old’s girl troubles before, so the day’s events probably shouldn’t have surprised me, right? But last night he spent almost an hour making a beautiful picture of “Zion holding Nevaeh’s hand” and he asked Daddy to help him write, “Dear Nevaeh, I am so glad you are my friend. I hope your birthday is great. Love, Zion.”

I promised him I would make some cupcakes and get a present for him to give to her, and I spent the entire damned day shopping, wrapping and making cupcakes. I called Nevaeh’s grandmother and made sure we could meet with Grandpa to pass the gift along after school – mission accomplished.

We are on our way home when Zion tells me from the backseat, “Nevaeh makes me so sad, Mom. She told me again today that she’s not my friend.”

I am not going to repeat the things that went through my head, because it’s just not appropriate to have those types of thoughts about a four-year-old, right? So I said, “That’s ok, Buddy. We just won’t get Nevaeh anymore presents, and we won’t invite her to anymore parties.”

Oh yes. I totally went there. I am such a petty bitch.

SO my five-year-old, who has been listening to the Beatles recently, says, “Oh, Mom, that’s not fair. We can still get her presents. Maybe we can just tell her in a nice way that she makes me sad when she says things like that.”

Seriously?

I try a quick subject change.

“Are there other girls in your class that are your friends?”

He gives a long, rambling speech about other girls in his class, but none of them are as “good” as Nevaeh. I am so sad, so utterly pissed off that this little girl doesn’t see what an awesome thing she’s missing out on, and so determined to set this child up with a girl who appreciates him, right?

And then he breaks out this gem:

“Mom, Gregory – ” lets out a long sigh – “I hate to even say this, Mom, but Gregory bumped into me in the hallway today and he didn’t even apologize.”

He says the last part the way the neighborhood busy-body reports teenagers smoking on the corner – eyes wide for emphasis.

“These children,” he says, shaking his head sadly, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with them.”

I am shaking with laughter in the front seat as I pull over to write this down quickly before I can forget it.

“What are you writing, Mom?” he asks.

“Nothing, Buddy – just something I need to remember for later.”

Difficult the teen years will be with this padawan.

Mike comes home from work today, sees the half of a hamburger I left on the stove from lunch and says, “Oh good! A sandwich!”

I hear him chuckling a minute later in the kitchen, and he says, “I love you.”

I say, “Thank you.. any particular reason?”

He’s quiet for a minute, and then he says, “It’s just really cute that you cut your hamburger into quarters.”

I start giggling and I say, “That’s one of those childhood things. You know my grandmother and my great-grandmother were total sticklers for etiquette. I remember saying to my grandmother, ‘Why can’t I just eat the flippin’ sandwich?’ and she would say, ‘We are not truck drivers, Sara, whether your step-father chooses to be or not. We do not eat like truck drivers. Therefore, we cut our sandwiches.’ I guess it’s just one of those things that stuck with me, because I can’t eat a sandwich without at least cutting it in half, but usually into quarters.”

I hear him chuckle again, and he says, “Think about that, Sara. It’s bred into you to cut your sandwiches in half. Here you are, in our little ghetto house, cutting your sandwiches in half.”

I process this for a moment and say, “Are you saying maybe they should have focused a little less on the sandwich cutting?”

Now we’re both laughing, and he says, “Your great-grandmother is probably rolling in her grave. She’s going, ‘THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A DINING ROOM TABLE!’ But you’re still cutting your sandwiches in half, dammit.”

My grandmother, several months ago, received four pairs of shoes from a friend that were almost new. They were good shoes – not Manolo Blahniks, but good, sensible shoes – with broken heels. My grandmother paid a shoe cobbler {yes, they still exist} $15 per shoe to replace the heels. Thirty dollars for each pair of shoes.

I helpfully pointed out that she could have purchased new shoes for that, so this wasn’t exactly a favor, and my grandmother acknowledged it but said, “It’s $30 for new shoes or fixing the ones I have. What’s the point of buying a whole other pair of shoes – so I can throw these away?”

And now I have just become my grandmother. I didn’t understand it in the term of shoes, because I’m one of those strange women who doesn’t “get” shoes {I own like two pairs of shoes, I think}.

Fifty years ago, a bunch of white people decided their neighborhoods were getting a little too dark for their liking and they freaked out. They left their homes, businesses, churches, and neighborhoods, took over some farmland, and built houses on it.

The city decided this was ok – it was justified, no one wants dark neighborhoods – and “annexed” the new neighborhoods.

This was a great deal for the residents who developed the farmland, because that meant the city had to maintain their crap. Streetlights, curbs, streets, sewers, etc. – it’s the city’s responsibility to handle this, along with things like fire response, police, and ambulance. I could go on, but you get the idea.

When those first little groups of suburbs started getting old, wearing out, “going dark,” the white people panicked again and moved even further out to places like Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Independence and hell, let’s just throw Lone Jack, Belton, and Raymore in there for good measure. Those cities were too far away to be annexed, so they became their own cities, and that was delightful.

Know what happened? The original city – the one all the white people left in the first place? It’s falling down. Literally. Falling. Down. The school district is coming apart at the seams. The streets are in dire need of repair. That city can’t seem to handle or afford its own snow removal, and we won’t even talk about the rest of the administration.

You can abandon that city if you want, move all your tax dollars to outlying areas, and that’s all well and good. But the water still has to travel through the city pipes to get to you, and they have to be repaired sometimes. You still have to drive through the city to get to work. Even if no one lives on the streets in the city, there are streetlights that have to be turned on and maintained. You still have to use the services the city provides.

Unless you want to pick the city up and move it to your neighborhood, you still have to pay to run the damned city. That’s what civilization is, people – Rome protects you, you support it with your tax dollars.

There is a neighborhood in south Kansas City that proudly features more than 400 foreclosed homes. There are a total of 1800 homes in the neighborhood, so 400 of them sitting vacant is a huge problem, right? These are older homes that are now boarded up in an attempt to deter would-be criminals from using them nefariously.

But here’s the problem. These homes are still in Kansas City. We still support the sewer system in this neighborhood. We still pay for street lights to run. We still have to fill in the potholes and repair the curbs. As part of Kansas City, we still have to take care of the infrastructure, whether there are currently tax payers living there or not.

This crumbling, falling apart, mess of a neighborhood was one of the very first places that very first round of white people “fled” to when their inner-city neighborhoods starting going dark 50 years ago.

What was once a bastion of white privilege is now a maze of abandoned homes, run-down rental properties, and a few home owners who are struggling to keep their neighborhood alive. The school district is closing schools – there aren’t enough students in the district to keep them open. The district itself has been been plagued with controversy for years.

The residents in this neighborhood would scream and yell if they saw me typing this – “We love our neighborhood! There’s hope for our neighborhood! If we could just get the city to pay attention.. If someone would just help us out a little with the crime.. This neighborhood could be great again!”

Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like a certain redheaded mother-of-one who happens to live in the city and defend it constantly? Does it maybe sound like the mission statement of every freaking neighborhood association in the urban core? Just a couple of decades ago, though, this place was the ideal. Close to jobs, great development – the answer to everyone’s prayers.

Now it’s costing us money – and again – this is just one neighborhood. How many of these exist in the metro area?

Let’s refresh:

• Build a city
• City gets old, needs repairs
• Abandon the city, move out-ward
• Still bear the cost of running the old city
• Bear the cost of running the “out-ward”
• “Out-ward” falls apart
• Abandon “out-ward”, move “more-out-ward”
• Still bearing the cost of the city, add the cost of “out-ward”
• No tax payers are hanging out in the city, or in the “out-ward”

It didn’t work. The whole, “give them the city and we’ll go east” thing, I mean. It failed.

When something fails, you’re supposed to try a different technique, right? RIGHT? DON’T WE LEARN THAT IN KINDERGARTEN?!?

Then why – please, please, please enlighten me – why in the hell are we even considering building a new neighborhood development in the Northland? I don’t care if it supports itself. I don’t care how much trash the developer is willing to collect. I just don’t care.

If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a big freaking contributor to the problem. Do we need more land? No. We do not. Do we need more residents? Yes – yes, yes, yes! Should we maybe knock some old houses down, reclaim our already-established neighborhoods, and work to build communities in them instead of isolating ourselves and abandoning things that are broken?

This is the part where my grandmother would say, “Look at you, all growed up.”

I haven’t ever participated in a public housing program, but after a little research into the public housing debacle in Kansas City, I firmly believe that a good public housing program benefits everyone. It doesn’t matter if you use it or not.

It turns out that my house sits right on the border of my neighborhood association’s boundaries. The one that begins across the street is a model for public housing. In the last decade, they’ve managed to reduce the crime rate more than 50% and raise property values. The neighborhood is a mixture of young families, singles, and elderly couples of all income levels. Home ownership is high – a rarity in my neck of the woods – and this neighborhood can thank the neighborhood association for that.

After taking part in HUD and other public housing programs, these property owners have managed to clear out drug houses, build new homes, and renovate existing homes throughout the neighborhood. In the process, they provided low-cost housing to people who needed it – and appreciated it – the most.

This is one of those instances, though, where the Kansas City administrative officials seem to be pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. The KC public housing system has found itself in mess after mess for years. I won’t lecture or go into details – you can Google it if you’re interested at all.

But an article caught my eye today about an artistic project in Detroit that was designed to bring attention to the public housing problem there, too. Several artists collaborated to freeze an entire abandoned house, hoping to prove a point about the “frozen public housing issues”.

It’s a really beautiful statement, even if you aren’t into tackling local government issues – the opposite end of a frozen palace. I’d love to see it in person.

Tonight Mike and I are enjoying a quiet game of Super Mario Bros. and I say, “I need some chocolate.” Hello, my name is Sara, and I am having painful PMS cravings as I’m typing this.

My husband says, with as much tact and as few chuckles as he can muster, “I got some chocolate for ya right here, baby.”

I ignore him and shortly after this, the Wii breaks. This is my cue, I think. I put my controller down and quietly retreat to the kitchen while Mike beats the living daylights out of the Wii console.

He finishes destroying the equipment and walks into the kitchen just in time to see me destroying a giant Hershey’s kiss with two butter knives and a hammer. I hold the Hershey’s kiss up and say, “How deep into this do you think the knife is?”

My husband’s face goes through several levels of emotion, at this moment beginning with horror. “It’s in far enough, baby,” he says.

“Far enough to break?” I ask.

“OH!” he exclaims. “I thought you were making a lollipop.”

{just take a moment and picture someone eating an upside-down giant Hershey’s kiss on top of a butter knife as a lollipop.}

He watches me for a few moments as I drive the knife further into the Hershey’s kiss, then insert another knife to act as a pry-bar to separate the pieces. Finally, Hershey’s kiss broken into several bite-sized pieces, I declare victory and he shakes his head.

“Sara, I want you to think about this. I just watched you decimate a Hershey’s kiss with two butter knives and a giant hammer.”

I’m puzzled by his reaction. “Would you rather I had eaten it whole?” I ask pointedly.

“No,” he says, “just think on it for a few minutes.”

He underestimates the methods a hormonal redhead will incorporate for chocolate cravings.

WOW.

Seriously, just wow.

I’d like to share with you just a few of the catastrophes that struck this week. Ready?

1. Insurance agents are coming to inspect my house. If you’ve ever BEEN to my house, you understand why this is catastrophic.

2. Our student loan payments went up again. This would not be completely catastrophic if we weren’t still trying to pay back the cost for the alternator we had to replace two weeks ago.

3. The transmission in the van (and an oxygen sensor) needs to be replaced.

4. Huge fight – huge fight – with school district personnel regarding an issue I’m not going to talk about on my blog. I’ll say that the problem, as usual, is not at the school level, but resides completely at the district level and it reinforces my belief that problems occur when organizations get too big and try to micromanage.{ahem, big-government-anyone?}

5. The engine in the Mystique blew up. You heard me. Blew up.

6. I thought to myself, “This is a great time for us to become a greener family. Let’s see if we can survive with one vehicle. I might even buy a bike!” Then I realized exactly what all those people were bitching about when they said that Kansas City’s mass transit system blows. It is literally not possible for us to keep our current jobs and own one vehicle.

7. All of these things do not even begin to touch the personal and semi-medical issues that I am painfully experiencing as we speak, but I’ll go ahead and spare you those exciting and graphic details.

I am cautiously optimistic that next week will be better, and with more blogging.

Today I picked Zion up and we wandered down to the school gym to help with the set-up for an upcoming program.

While I’m fairly wrapped up in the PTA and SAC goings-on, this is the first school program I’ve been involved with and it was an eye-opener.

In researching Montessori schools, we read a lot of things like:

On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who, because of a random lottery, attended other schools. By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on standardized tests of reading and math, engaged in positive interaction on the playground more, and showed advanced social cognition and executive control more. They also showed more concern for fairness and justice. At the end of elementary school, Montessori children wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.

This was written in the journal “Science” in 2006, and it sounds really great, right? But seeing it in action is a completely different experience.

So back to the program. We went to the gym to help with set-up. The after-school program was getting ready to begin their afternoon activities, and there was a teacher monitoring the restrooms from the hall. Zion had to go potty, and I worried that he would get thrown in with the after-school kids so I followed him and waited next to the teacher in the hallway.

A little girl stood in the center of the hallway, tears streaming down her face. Her placement told me this was more about making a public production than it was about being slighted, and I think the teacher felt that way too, but he dutifully asked what was wrong. She ignored him.

This went on for a few minutes – “What’s wrong?” with no response – and the teacher shrugged his shoulders and gave up. I didn’t blame him. I smiled at her and she glared at me. Ok, I thought, that was my effort.

As each student came out of the restroom, though, they stopped, put an arm around her, and asked what was wrong. This was not a cursory, doing-it-because-it’s-my-job kind of attempt – as I watched these students of all ages, kindergarten up to 6th grade, it was very apparent that each of them was concerned to see a student so upset. This was genuine.

I made another attempt when Zion came out. “Are you ok sweetheart?” No response. “Do you want to talk about it?” Nothing. “Do you want to talk to Zion?” She blinked! “He’s a really good listener.” Zion took her hand. “Would you like to go sit down?” Nothing again. “Are you just having one of those days where you need everyone to leave you alone so you can cry it out?” Slow nod – got it. “I have those days all the time, sweetie, you just hang out here and cry it out, ok? Come and find us if you need us.”

And we went into the gym. I didn’t even have time to ponder this when the next round hit.

Ms. Linda went to the after-school program and asked for help unloading materials out of the truck. POOF! Fifteen 5th and 6th graders appeared. The initial shuffle was comical and expected, with children running around like crazy people on crack.

After a minute or two, they organized themselves into a calm group of worker-bees, standing in a line handing supplies from the truck assembly-line style and carrying them into the gym to place them in an orderly pile.

I watched this with complete shock and amazement. I’ve worked around children for most of my life, and I knew from years of experience that any other school and any other group of children would be a chaotic mess for something like this. Not only had these children come ready and willing to help out – they had organized themselves into an efficient and effective workforce.

As they carried bag after bag through the gym, I said to my friend Bonnie, “This is unbelievable. You hear all of these things about Montessori kids being more socially prepared, yadda yadda, but I’ve never seen this in action. I’m completely amazed. I want to hire them to clean my basement!”

She laughed and said, “I’m not amazed anymore. I’ve been watching it for nine years now, but I guess it is pretty cool if you haven’t seen it. They’re really a big help.”

She talked about the opportunities the older kids have to help younger kids – the upper grades throw holiday parties for the younger grades, eliminating the need for parent planning; older children participate in programs to mentor younger children; they prepare presentations and lessons for younger ones – and it, in turn, provides a good role model system for the younger children.

I walked around the gym and took pictures as these kids erected tents, stabilized displays, built walls from PVC pipe, and ultimately completed the entire set-up.

I thought about the conversation I had with a relative yesterday about the Kansas City school district – “Do you think it’s wise to put him in an un-accredited district? Will it hurt his chances at getting into college? What about the crime problems? This superintendent won’t last – KC goes through superintendents like water.”

The same arguments over and over again. I know that Zion’s school is not representative of the entire district. I can’t imagine there are many schools with principals like Karen May, who work tirelessly seven days a week for hours that are unthinkable to most of us with 40-hour-per-week jobs.

This year the district offered special standardized test tutoring to students, made possible by federal funding. There was such an overwhelmingly huge district-wide response that only a fraction of the students who signed up for the program were actually accepted.

The response at Zion’s school? They set up their own program. This seems like a no-brainer for some people, but this is a federal program – an elementary school saw a need for their students, and they created an entire program to accomodate them. We’re not talking about basketball on Wednesdays.

We’re talking about teachers staying two hours after the school day ends to teach reading, English, and math skills to their students. It meant new lesson plans, new curriculum, extra time and patience – this was a huge endeavor.

So today I focused on hope. KCMSD is de-centralizing things at a rapid rate. They’re putting individual schools in charge of processes that have been handled at the district level for years. I can’t speak for other schools in the district, but I see pockets of hope everywhere.

I am hugely disheartened when I have those conversations – the ones I’ve been having for years – that begin with, “I can’t believe you’re subjecting your son to this.” They always end with me explaining that the reason KCMSD is in its current position is because people have abandoned it. It’s easier to walk away than work to fix the problem.

Days like this give me hope. They give me a reason to stay, to believe that a solution is close.

And let’s just be honest – it terrifies me that Zion is the future of our world. When I see these children working together in an organized and efficient manner to accomplish a goal, it makes me slightly less fearful. Maybe there is a future for our planet.

{see? I’m not always a pessimist.}