Ray Lewis challenges men to be active in families, communities

Fifty-two.

For former Super Bowl MVP and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, it was more than his jersey number.

Those two simple digits gained importance at age 10 when he used a deck of cards as part of a self-disciplining exercise during a troubled childhood living in the garage of his mother and stepfather’s home in Florida.

“I promised myself that I wouldn’t run from pain; I’d actually chase pain,” Lewis recalled Saturday as keynote speaker for the No More Excuses men’s conference at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church.

“I needed to feel what pain felt like, but I needed to feel me inflict my own pain,” he said.

The significance of those 52 cards?

“I flipped over six, I did six pushups. I flipped over 10, I did 10,” Lewis said. “And I went through it, and when I got through, I shuffled again and started doing my sit-ups.”

The routine gave him courage against his stepfather, whom he called the “most abusive man” he had ever lived with.

No excuses
Saturday’s conference was aimed at curbing male absenteeism and encouraging men to lead more God-centered lives. Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship senior pastor Tony Evans and gospel music star Kirk Franklin were also featured at the event, which drew men of all ages.

Lewis said there are no excuses for today’s men to be absent from their families and communities. Certainly in his own life, he said, there was no valid reason for his father to have left him as a newborn with a 15-year-old mother stranded in the hospital. The bills she was left with were crushing, he said.

“I started to learn the story, and it baffled me,” said Lewis, who was born Ray Jenkins. “The world is too crazy to leave a man by himself.”

A man whom his mother later began dating took care of the hospital bills. That man was named Ray Lewis, and as a youth, Lewis took the man’s name.

Lewis said Saturday that having an involved father is critical.

“I don’t care how good a mom is, how awesome she is, how spiritual she is. She can never teach a man to be a man,” he said.

Lewis urged audience members to regularly look within themselves and assess their own character.

“If you don’t try nothing else in life, go and look in the mirror and do an identity check every night before you go to bed,” he said.
Strong character, he said, should include a relationship with God, “old-school teaching” of kids and being present as men in the community again.

Timely issue
Julius Craig, 24, attends Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship and said he came to the conference because it addressed timely issues.

“The idea of this conference, it’s impactful, and I think our community needs it. The idea of a real man is absent,” he said.

Evans said that bringing in Lewis and Franklin made an important conference even more attractive.

“Our community, like so many other communities in this country, is facing the crisis of man absenteeism,” he said. “They’re missing in action, from their families, from their children, often from their mates, from the influence of the schools and community.”

“We need to call them together to take responsibility,” he said.

Lewis was just as frank.

“We’re here because we’re tired of excuses,” he said. “We don’t have to be police officers, we just have to be men.”


(dallasnews.com)