On the Minister's Mind

by Rev. Laine Morgan

As we approach the day when our country honors Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I find it timely to remember some of the wisdom he brought to the conversation of how humanity moves forward into a greater expression of ourselves.  Having lived so many years in his home city of Atlanta, I thought I had been exposed to most of his messages, but this week, in preparing for this article, I was reminded of an unfamiliar topic he preached about throughout his life.

In one sermon, he introduces the subject this way - “Life as it should be is three-dimensional: it’s complete on all sides. There are three dimensions of any complete life, for which we can certainly give the words of this text: length, breadth, and height.”  

He goes on to explain that the length of one’s life is the dimension of inner work, the development of moral character, personal endeavors and ambitions. The breadth of one’s life he described as the outward concern for the welfare of others.  And, the height of a person’s life is the connection to the Divine, an upward reach for God. If one is to have a full, healthy life, it must be three-dimensional.

I can’t think of a better time to remind ourselves of this wisdom from Dr. King. This triangle of strength and intention is what I believe we all need as we engage with life right now. It would be easy to tip off balance into any of the three dimensions, but we are at our best when we expand in all of the dimensions fully.

In spirituality, we connect with our Higher Power as God becomes more central to our experience and daily practice.  This stretches us to a new height because we grow to understand our identity as a spiritual being, empowered by Divine Intelligence.  We begin to maintain a constant connection to the Presence of Spirit.  This conscious relationship with our soul connection helps us as we do our personal work and heal, grow, evolve and focus on self-development. Over time, we grow our self-esteem and most certainly rise out of any personal debilitating trauma as we lengthen our personal dimension.  In turn, our sense of personal power expands and, as we improve our individual lives, we broaden our impact on the world around us. Our hearts expand into the spirit of Oneness, and the experience of others becomes our focus for the service we offer the communities in which we live.  Over time, we find balance in this three-prong approach.

When the world around us gets stressful, it is so easy to fall out of balance. Some imbalance looks like a withdrawal into our individual comfort zone and an increased focus on “just me and mine.” Yet other imbalance can occur where there is a forsaking of individual concerns and a life can be dedicated to making the welfare of others the primary focus.  The mission becomes more important than the well-being of the “missionary.” And, yet another imbalance can be an individual tipping into an attitude of “I will just pray and let God handle it.”  None of those imbalances are wrong, they are just less powerful than having a three-dimensional approach.

Let us remember that God is Love.  The more we grow the height of our relationship with Love, our connection to the source of all love, the more powerful we are. The more we love ourselves and see ourselves as a channel for love, the more powerful we are.  And, the more we flow that love, given by source, to every human being, the more powerful we are.  It truly is a three-dimensional life we are called to live.

Let us honor Spirit, ourselves, each other, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a three-dimensional way.  Love is all there is.