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A huge bust of Dorothy Height stands on a pedestal just outside her office. It stands in mute witness to the power of one person to make a difference.

For many people, Dorothy Height needs no introduction. For them, she is inspiration, social activist, model, living-history/legend, grace, tenacity, beauty and power, all rolled into one.

I met Dorothy Height earlier this month for the first time. People at United Methodist Communications in Nashville honored me by asking me to interview her as part of a series of audio 'faith profiles' they offer on their Web site, www.umc.org (click under 'spiritual life' and then 'profiles').

As the Web site notes, 'Profiles are audio faith biographies of United Methodists with unique perspectives on subjects that are of interest to the denomination. In their own voice, the subjects of Profiles detail events in their lives that have helped to shape their spiritual journey.'

My job was to interview Dorothy Height and extract that 'faith biography.' You won?t hear my voice on the interview; they edit that out. A narration recorded in Nashville will weave Height?s story seamlessly together.

And so I went to meet Dorothy Height. I was scheduled to meet her in the afternoon in her office, overlooking the intersection of Sixth and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Height was born in 1912 (you do the math). She began her working career in New York City as a Welfare Department case worker after receiving a scholarship to attend New York University because of her oratory skills. She earned both bachelor?s and master?s degrees.

According to her bio, Height began her career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. In 1944, she joined the national staff of the YWCA. In 1957, she was named president of the NCNW, a position she held for 40 years. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, she organized 'Wednesdays in Mississippi,' which brought together black and white women from the north and south to talk and try to achieve understanding.

Among the people who traveled in her circles and sought her advice: Eleanor Roosevelt, President Eisenhower and President Johnson. In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded her the Congressional Gold Medal.

Her office is, in fact, filled with medals and plaques and vases and awards and trophies. I asked her how many she had. She said she actually, honestly, didn?t know.

What her official bio doesn?t speak about is her faith. Born and raised a Baptist, Height became a Methodist more than 70 years ago. She gives credit to the women?s organization of the church and, today, the United Methodist Women, for helping to pave the way and offer her opportunity and support in her work. She has been a United Methodist of the Baltimore-Washington Conference since the conference?s creation.

I asked her if she thought her work was a calling; if this was a ministry for her. To my surprise, she said not really, but then proceeded to clearly detail how God had always provided for her, how God had always given her a purpose for her life, time and time again.

Sounds like a calling to me.

One moment, however, is frozen in my mind. You won?t hear it on the interview. It was a look Height shot me. Actually, to call it a 'look' is dead wrong, for that implies she merely gazed upon me. No, this was a piercing, penetrating, see-right-through-you shot from her eyes that went to my very soul.

After Height had recalled some of the work she had done in the civil rights movement, I asked her a simple question. I knew the answer before I asked it (that?s important to know), but I asked it to elicit her response.

I asked, 'Has there ever been a time, in all your work at reforming society, when you?ve said, ?Aha! This is it! We?ve achieved what we?ve set out to do!?? Or?'

And I paused. Just long enough for Dorothy Height to snap her head to attention. Her eyes, partially covered by a blue hat fit for a queen, were suddenly full-bore on me. Through me. In me.

'?. Or is there more work to be done?'

I honestly don?t remember what she said at that point. I was transfixed by those eyes. It was if all those years of work, sacrifice, sadness, joy, pain, suffering, giving, forgiving, living, moving, persuading and triumph were laser-beam focused on me. I shriveled. My soul burned. But I got my answer.

My soul still burns with the memory. It burns with the knowledge that yes, indeed, there is much work to be done in the areas of civil rights. It burns with the knowledge that yes, I too am guilty of being part of the problem whenever I stand idly by and let racism, sexism or other 'isms' roam about freely. It burns with the understanding that I, a white male, can?t fully understand where Dorothy Height has been, where she?s come from or where she?s still leading us.

But I got a glimpse, a sacred, holy glimpse, thanks to those eyes.

And now a part of that is in me.