This morning I helped in the kids’ department at church. Others did lessons and crafts. I just gave a hand here and there…and listened.

These are the children of privilege, little people who come from economic, social, and educational advantage.

Each Sunday is a juvenile fashion parade; beautiful, beautiful clothes on beautiful, beautiful children. Each little person is squeaky clean, has received careful nutrition along with tip-top health care.

Children are walked upstairs by proud parents who loving bid them farewell for the duration of their Sunday instruction. Going back downstairs, Mom and Dad look over their shoulders, give a little wave of encouragement. Every child is the apple of someone’s eye.

Most of these kids go to private schools or are home schooled by highly educated parents. Smart to begin with, they receive every building block to adult success.

So this morning I listened. It was the Sunday for Genesis’ creation story. Lydia got to the part where God created day and night. One little pipsqueak raised his hand and offered, “That accounts for the space-time continuum.”

Later a poetically minded little twerp piped up, “I think of clouds as the breath of God.”

When Lydia told of the day when God separated land from water, a third small savant added, “Management of the planet’s liquid.” And another child murmured, “H2O.”

Are these kids budding geniuses? Maybe. More likely they’re what happens when kids get a chance.

Sometimes I help at a local public school in a very poor neighborhood. There, 77% of the population lives in crowded, substandard apartments. Each night there’s close-by gunfire. Drugs, prostitution, burglary, assault, drunkenness abound. Very few adults have what I’d call a job.

Those children eat cheap, fattening food, get very little exercise, have few if any educational toys, watch “adult” TV instead of the many wonderful cable shows for kids. They see their parents fight and commit crimes, have learned to avoid adult attention. In many of that neighborhoods’ homes, there’s not so much as one book, newspaper, magazine.

Result? Kids there read poorly if at all. They have scant interest in learning. They don’t expect to graduate from high school. Parents not only fail to encourage them, some parents make fun of kids who do well in school.

This morning at Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Children’s Chapel, I thought of those other kids, the ones scheduled for failure. Listening to the talk of wonderfully nurtured children, I hoped that someday in this country, we who have everything will realize how much it matters to give every child a good place to grow up.

Yes, the kids I heard today might some day run this country. At one point, when he lived in Colonial Place, John McCain attended my church. But here’s the thing…we ought to make sure that all children have a chance to be what God had in mind when He created them. On the seventh day, God looked at His creation and said, “It’s very good.” Not any more…but we could fix that.