Paying for gas with coins wasn’t cool, especially while driving a Mercedes. My car and budget were both running on fumes.

You’ve heard of brunch. Well, at 3:00 AM I was routinely having brupper—free breakfast and supper at Burger King’s closing time. PB & J sandwiches and pop corn lunches. A pseudo-hay field for a yard, and my used Snapper hadn’t snapped for quite awhile. No newspaper. No TV. No Phone. No frills. If eBay had been around I’d have sold all but the walls.

An Eagle Scout would have been better prepared for my last winter in Oxford, Ohio as a Miami doctoral student. Free pallets from a nearby factory kept my stove glowing—literally. The hardwood burned so hot at times that the cast iron glowed like a branding iron—I often had windows wide open during snow days. Hand cutting pallet planks was perhaps the most vivid reminder of my struggles, heading daily to the pile regardless of when I returned home.

It was a time of unpredictable and unpreventable financial hits that thrust me into a year of creative survival. During the days I’d teach large history classes on Miami’s stunning campus among throngs of carefree students. At nights I’d hibernate with books in the graduate student offices drinking discarded instant coffee and flat Big K Cola. This was the pre-Ramen Noodles era but Craft mac and cheese sufficed, though nutrition was optional. Instead of Starbucks it was no bucks. Thank God for The Salvation Army or I’d have sheered my neighbor’s sheep. I sometimes wondered if students recognized my outfits from their roommates’ closets, or worse, their own.

I spent a decade at Miami that year—but it was worth it. In some ways it was the best of times, in others it was just plain tough. I finally got a break when asked to fill in for a fired professor at Ohio Northern University—though the two-hour drive on Tuesdays and Thursdays was a killer, and that was one way. I eventually crawled out from beneath the financial boulder, and the long year of 1986 passed. Though the daily grind was nearly debilitating, the dream was stronger than the struggle. I am a teacher, and for me there is no higher calling.

In reflection, I was fortunate to have had no car payments, no plastic, almost no utilities, total monthly house costs under $300, and a healthy IRA taken out as a teen. But even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. My daily struggles came in large part from a car deal—the sale of a vintage 1968 Mustang sold at half its value to a friend. That car sale had been my financial plan for the last year of graduate school; it was my safety net. As the weeks and months passed and checks never came I realized that the net had a huge hole—a tough lesson in tough times. Life isn’t fair, and it wasn’t the last of such lessons. Life is about resolve and the focus on goals and dreams not others’ shortcomings.

Through the years I’ve had many students who were crisis driven—and usually the crisis was someone else’s. They weren’t been able to show sympathy and empathy without emptying their internal reserves. And for others, their personal financial crises, common among students, were not seen as attached to a journey with payoff. Both types of students were seriously at risk of leaving school.

Then there are those who seem to get it, like the student who sat across from me yesterday. She’s works three jobs, helps her mother with troubled sons, regularly seeks advice from a financial expert, and is very aware of needing “Plan B’s.” However, there is clear resolve; she understands the Why and she’ll figure out the How. She’s one of dozens through the years I wish I could help, but with four sons (three in private schools) I can only give advice. And, at times, perhaps the dividends prove higher.

Such students have maturity beyond their years, and qualities that will likely propel them into leadership once they navigate education’s cost. Every year there’s a student or two like her that have no recourse, no reserves, and no regrets. Education factors significantly in their dreams.

During the height of my financial struggles I was coming off an all-nighter in the graduate office when I heard of the Space Shuttle explosion on the car radio. I had to pull off the road to have the kind of cry that still shakes me to the present. Suddenly, on January 28, 1986, my situation seemed smaller, more manageable. Struggles were still very real, but had realistic resolutions—a plan and a path. There was also the realization that, like my young student yesterday, apart from God’s protection and peace I was alone financially. And that was okay, because I was going to make it at all costs.

Like the seven Challenger astronauts, we have a quintessential desire for our lives to matter, a drive not attached to our socio-economic profiles. And it’s that drive, not money, that matters most in life’s journey.

Do you recall times when finances nearly strangled life from your routine? How did you survive? What lessons did you take from these years?

I thought I had hugged a 5’6” bowling ball – instead it was Anthony Clark who had just bench pressed 805 lbs. And for those of you lifters, it was reverse grip!

We were backstage at the old drive-in theater on rte. 66 in Azusa, CA, and 5,000 teens were waiting to hear Anthony’s story. As the film clip of his amazing strength rolled, shouts of astonishment filled the night. Around 30 other noted athletes from Olympians to professionals also gasped! I had worked with some of them for years in local weight rooms, refereed the huge bench press meet for the Police/Fireman’s Olympic warm-ups at LA.’s Star Theater, and had shared the bench with the likes of the NFL’s Christian Okoye (Nigerian Nightmare), but nothing had prepared me for what I saw. It seemed super-human.

I’d be hard pressed to lift 805 lbs. with a car jack, let alone with my mediocre manliness. I’d have looked like Dana Carvey sun bathing in front of a moving steam roller.

Like many great big-framed athletes, Anthony had a gentle spirit. Within minutes the rowdy crowd settled as he shared about his childhood and his reasons for lifting. You might want to close your eyes as you read into his story. Though traffic was rushing down the historic highway just beyond the screen, and child celeb Tahj Moury was waiting in his limo, his personal history stopped the chatter that oftentimes takes our attention. Muscular young Latino men in double baggy pants froze in their seats. Whole sections of teenage valley girls stopped blowing bubbles. Giggling had left that massive makeshift arena where hundreds of cars once parked. In their stead was piercing silence—except for Anthony’s no-nonsense calm voice reaching their hearts.

As he began to share about his father’s anger, his own helplessness, his need for a way out, we began to hear his heart—to help others to cope, to find help, to know that we can develop dreams stronger than our struggles. It crystallized for him when his father hung him by the hands over a ceiling beam and beat him senseless—well, almost. It was there that he began to make sense of his life. Somehow this gentle giant began to form a resolve, to make sense of his life. He was going to be better and kinder than his dad. He was going to live life fully. The harder the object hit him, the more solidified his resolve.

Anthony clearly relayed that whether our challenges are great or small, we need resolve. For Anthony, he also come to a faith in Christ that brought peace amidst a storm.

Various studies today are revealing that the majority of college students are listing spirituality as very important—some studies showing over 90%. Regardless of which religion, and most often via non-traditional worship venues, young men and women are searching for a connection to something beyond themselves. This indeed is a matter of faith. Though I resonate strongly with Anthony’s beliefs, I’ve also come to realize that the human spirit is keenly aware of noble causes, of rightness and wrongness, of humanitarian issues worth giving one’s life to and for.

“I’m going to beat some sense into you” is a phrase some folks from my generation heard, though I can’t relate in the least to what Anthony endured. However, I think we all can relate to moments when we come to our senses and realize that we’re able to make a difference in a cause much greater than our own. I’ve also observed that oftentimes it’s when someone gets upset about the conditions around them, about inhumane treatment or untapped energies in children that they muster strength to do what appears to be super-human. For many of us, we believe that it is just that. However, we also fully realize that regardless of one’s faith there are common values and causes that bring us together—to stand and fight arm in arm for the betterment of others. For civility. For security. For protection of the disenfranchised. The discarded children. The victims of both force and policy.

I’ve chosen to respond through the classroom, where ideas have consequences, where young and old minds alike can come to new knowledge and new solutions. Where they learn that lives matter and oftentimes finding the right question is the only route to a workable answer.

In some ways I wish I hadn’t heard Anthony’s story about hanging from the rafter. But it’s truth is transforming, and part of a life’s experiences that continue to inform. It reminds me not only of the inequities and lack of civility in many lives, but also that there’s that deep inner resolve that connects to noble goals.

Your thoughts?

P.S--Last I looked the bench press record is now at 1,010 lbs. by Gene Rychlack (you can watch it on YouTube, http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/3758).

I would have enjoyed the White House lawn more without the secret service at the door. I was still preoccupied with disturbing news from a meeting when the cast of James Bond seemed to appear. While still trying to wrap my mind around a troubling issue these well-dressed agents took issue with me.

When the Eisenhower elevator stopped at Level One, I had turned left and greeted the intern before walking down an unfamiliar hallway. Perhaps I looked official in my blue blazer and security pass, but looks only take you so far in life. I was suddenly staring at plush grass instead of Pennsylvania Avenue—that was off Level Two.

While as nervous as anyone surrounded by such history and position, it was the levity of need among our nation’s children that stung my sensibilities. The White House meeting had begun innocently enough with a welcome by Jay Hein, whose name will forever be linked to the Supreme Court case that passed the day prior. The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives had once again survived an uninformed and counter-intuitive attack on bi-partisan efforts that are providing remarkable answers for social ills. Thousands of criminals have surrendered through church-sponsored programs, hundreds of thousands of elderly and infirmed are finding relief, and countless neighborhoods are uniting in economic and educational strategies. Democrats and Republicans alike were applauding the collaborative gains for the disenfranchised, disabled, rehabilitated, and for sustained help for waves of innocent children.

It was the plight of our children in New Mexico that stunned me on that blistering hot D.C. day. Nancy Pope enters stage right and time stood still. I had joined her for tea earlier, but didn’t fully understand the magnitude of her efforts. She had left an elite group in wealth management to join Governor Bill Richardson’s office, believing that there had to be a way to provide a systemic answer to the children’s needs in her state. This classy bright veteran blonde with excellent jewelry appointments, teeth and grammar was about to drill deep into our souls.

After outlining the bleak statistics of her state’s economic and educational status, she shared about her investigatory visits to rural schools. Except for education they are isolated indeed. Many of their towns are 400 miles from the nearest store of any kind. Nearly 100% of all school children in rural New Mexico qualify for federally assisted free-lunches. But it was the low academic scores that puzzled Nancy since the town folk held education in high esteem. During interviews various elementary teachers shared that they were losing nearly a whole day each week due to health concerns. It was then that Nancy’s heart, and ours in turn, began to cry. Many of the children were fainting in the mornings from lack of food; their last meal had been the free lunch on Friday. The faces of my own four sons flashed before me—and thinking of any one of them lying unconscious on a hallway floor brought tears. Visible tears. I could have used Sponge Bob to dry my face when she ended. All American children are our children. Their faces are those of our heritage and destiny. Whether Black or White, Hispanic, Indian, Asian, or a mix, each face represents the countenance of this great country.

As Nancy searched for answers, she discovered that nearly $4 million in food supplies was stuck in storage warehouses due to bureaucratic red tape. With her Governor’s help, she managed to use this and other resources to start a “backpack program.” Each Friday the children are sent home with meals to last the weekend. She’s fully aware that many families share this small stash, but it’s a step toward keeping children walking until Monday’s lunch—and taking strides toward their futures.

At another White House sponsored event just days ago, my heart was once again strangely warmed. And, once again Jay Hein was hosting the session—but this time in Indianapolis. A song from Whitley Phipps and a remarkable testimony from James Morris set the bar high for any who followed. Morris had left his successful business career to run United Nations World Food Program, the largest relief agency in the world distributing billions of dollars worth of relief annually. In 2003 his team fed 27 million Iraqis from 44,000 distributions points with the help of 3,200 agencies. Jim has seen poverty at a mass level that few can fathom. He warned that by 2012 there will be 20 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone. In many countries the husbands have died from either civil wars or aids and 12-year old women are oftentimes raising communities. “I certainly did not leave Indiana a feminist but came back one!”

In rather emotional moment Morris noted his discussions at the Vatican, and though he admired his friends there, especially the popes, he had trouble with a priest’s answer to the question about the number of children dying in poverty. The cleric had shared “It’s a mystery of faith.” Morris retorted—“That’s a damn poor answer!” His point wasn’t blaming God, or disrespecting all the good taking place, but that the Bible is replete with messages to help the poor and the American Church could do so much more. In a gripping conclusion he challenged us to imagine 45 different 747 planes filled with kids, and then imagine them crashing daily—18,000 children starve to death every 24 hours.

In a gripping conclusion Mr. Morris, round in stature, red-faced from intensity, and with a very healthy admirable confidence in he had become, tried to put in perspective that so little go so far—that we need to work toward peace in the interest of the children. He recalled Brazilian President de Silva telling him that “the real weapons of mass destruction in the world are hunger and starvation.” It was fitting to end on Mother Teresa’s summation that “If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.”

Like my time in D.C., I felt my heart so heavy that it burdened my soul. Against my personal backdrop of poverty, knowing the throes of welfare and living in the margins, I realized that whatever struggles our family of ten had endured were really more levels of sustenance and not survival. We are a blessed nation.

Dr. Robert Einterz followed with an overview of an exemplary effort by IU’s School of Medicine that teaches future Kenyan doctors as it addresses their country’s pandemic (http://medicine.iupui.edu/kenya/). Moments later the final speaker stepped forward-steps not soon forgot by the hundreds present.

A tall stately Ethiopian matriarch walked in a graceful gait to the platform. Marta Gabre-Tsadick, co-founder of Project Mercy with her husband, “Deme,” began to speak and a regal countenance crystallized attention on her every word and mannerism. I couldn’t help but recall times I had been in the presence of royalty and dignitaries, and especially those like Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks and Billy Graham that but me at ease while overwhelming the moment.

Marta’s name means servant, a fitting rubric for this stately paragon of service learning. She had fled her country in 1977 during communist uprisings after serving as the first woman in the Ethiopian Parliament. Emperor Halie Selassie had commissioned her as a senator to look into government corruption. None of this was shared from the stage—the undertone was clear, “It’s not about me. It’s not about us. It’s about them—the innocent millions of Ethopians hanging in the balances with little to tip the scale.” She cut quickly to her flight from her royal confines, and their long journey since to provide relief for orphaned children.

My mind has trapped forever her tender yet terse depiction of Ethiopia—“Dying mothers with babies sucking their dried breasts.” A church in Ft. Wayne, Indiana helped her in her darkest hour of need and she’s remained appreciative since—all the while joined by her husband in founding Project Mercy. Beyond the physical relief they’ve helped to usher into rural Ethiopia, Project Mercy has also sent many teams of middle school graduates from its programs to teach older and often disenfranchised neighbors to read. Every day for Marta and Deme is lived intentionally and intensely for a cause much greater than themselves (http://www.casefoundation.org/leaders/marta_deme/qa).

After the meeting I went straight to the elevator, teary-eyed and hopelessly sappy and looking inebriated at 10:00 am. And of all people, I shared it serendipitously with Jay Hein. I only went a couple of floors, then blocked the door before exiting, looked at Jay through wet eyes and a soft heart. “That was a remarkable session, Sir. Simply remarkable. It moved me and I thank you deeply.” In his patented kindness that would melt even the faintest trace of indifference, he thanked me. The door shut, but not soon eclipsing the smile of man making a difference.

I walked around the corner and down an unfamiliar hallway. Once again, wearing the same blue blazer and an ID badge. And, wouldn’t you know it? I was on the wrong floor. But like my time at the White House I was far from inwardly lost but again had found myself—an inner reserve to dedicate my gifts to noble causes, to give first-rate energies to first-rate causes. And, to continue to remind leaders that the dream needs to stronger than the struggle—and millions of children, whether in New Mexico schools or Ethiopian fields aren’t dreaming, but by feeding their minds and bodies, they can. And oh my new friends, oh the power of such dreams.

It’s little wonder that good governors strongly endorse the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, whether Democrats like the endearing Bill Richardson or Republicans like the indefatigable Mitch Daniels. They haven’t forgotten that “we belong to each other.”

What are you thinking? What are some of the noble causes that you think worthy of your life's best efforts? Any persons come to mind that are making a huge difference for such causes?