1. Giving it away
No one knows how much money Dr. Lyle Tullis gave away to students. I was his colleague for nearly a decade and I never ceased to be amazed at his generosity. He taught sociology; I taught missions.
Our college has an aggressive program of providing cross-cultural experiences for students. Lots of students take advantage of summer experiences overseas. Early on I discovered that no group left for overseas without some of its members receiving substantial financial help from Dr. Tullis.
It wasn't that he made a lot of money. For one thing, he taught at a church-run institution. There, his salary was half that which his counterparts earned in nearby tax-supported institutions.
Other faculty occasionally groused about comparatively low pay scale. Not Lyle Tullis. Occasionally a professor would leave our campus for a more lucrative position. A couple of them told me they did so because, with higher pay checks, "I can better provide for my family."
The size of Lyle Tullis' paycheck never seemed to be the most important thing to him. I realized that one day when I was thanking him for helping a student with mission trip costs.
His eyes twinkled as he said to me, "Aw, I've got so much money I don't know what to do with it. So, I just give it away."
Most folks wouldn't have thought that way. Dr. Tullis drove one of the older cars on campus. It was certainly older than almost any of the students' cars. His home, while comfortable, was not fanciest of the faculty homes. But Lyle Tullis lived grandly with the feeling that he had so much money he needed to give it away.
He was one of the favorites on campus. A cynic might say that he bought that approval. But they would misunderstand. Lyle wanted to invest his life, all of it, in people. He'll never leave a large estate; but he will leave a legacy.