Dear Tyler, Jared and Braden:

Grandma Xie thinks of you every day. I think of how handsome you are. I know how intelligent you are. But I see more than how handsome and intelligent you are. I see that you are “good” boys. I want to tell you a storey about your Great Grandfather Andrew. He would love you very much and I am sure you would love him too. He was a heavyweight prize fighter in college. I am saving a poster of him in his boxing clothes in the ring at a big prizefight. (I went to that fight and told him I could never marry a prizefighter and that was the end of that career.) Also he loved baseball and was the Captain of a team called the Apaches. He had a chance to go into a field team, hoping to go into the big league. He was the catcher on the team. He loved all sports and would be at every game you play if he was alive today. Then, World War II came along and he went off to war, fighting the Nazi’s in Germany. (Some day I will show you his medals. ) Then after the war he went back to college and became a priest in the Episcopal Church and served in several churches in Washington, D.C. and in California.

Your great grandfather, Andrew, loved children and much of his ministry was devoted to teaching children and he told them many stories of Jesus, especially how much Jesus loved the little children. I believe you are hearing stories about Jesus in your Sunday School. As well as being the Rector of the church he was the headmaster of the church school. Many of the children recall today what they learned in the morals and ethics classes he taught. They remembered that school started every morning in chapel which started them off to a good day.

One day on the Internet I read a storey that a young man posted about what he learned from a particular sermon that your Grandfather Andrew told the children at St. Patrick’s Church. The young man was about 8 or 9 years old and he remembered the storey all these years and tells it to his children.

This is the sermon the young man remembered from that Sunday long, long ago.

The sermon was titled “Not Being Bad Is Not The Same As Being Good.” It piqued my interest said the young boy and he is guided in his life today as he recalls that day and the sermon he heard. (I am sure your great grandfather is rejoicing knowing that the children in Sunday School understood and remembered what they heard in Sunday School.)

Father Andy (as great- grandfather was called by the church members) gave lots of examples of being good. And he gave plenty of examples of being bad. (I am sure you can think of examples of your being good and of being bad.) Then he went on the explain the difference between good, bad, and indifference. He said how being good or bad required action You had to “do” something to be good or bad. But indifference was best defined by no action at all. Making no effort to do anything was indifference. If I did not steal, I was not being bad. But because I did not steal did not make me “good” either. It just meant that I was doing “nothing”. He then paraphrased a Bible lesson about coming across a man who had been beaten and robbed. Certainly those who had done the beating were bad. But what was I if I crossed to the other side of the street and did nothing to help? Since I did not beat or steal from the man, I was not bad. But if I was indifferent, I was certainly not being good. Father Andy challenged each of us to be good.

Now, Tyler, Jared Andrew, and Braden I see what a busy but wholesome life you are leading and I know that great-grandfather Andrew would be so proud of you. Also, he would be proud of your mother and father for being such good parents. What a joy you would be to him as you excel in school and in sports. He would be right there with your dad Coach Kevin and you could call him Coach Andrew. He would rejoice when you won, and also comfort you when you lost, telling you it that it is not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game. (Well, I am sure he would help you vent your disappointment and treat to a milkshake or a Jamba Juice as I see the teams frequent our that store in my neighborhood.)

I am really blessed to have lived long enough to know my great - grandchildren. You are very precious to me. I know you will like the gifts I am enclosing with this letter and it gives me great joy to send them.

Lots of love to Good Boys