9: Ray Sawatsky
from In Conversation with David Goa Hosted by David Goa
David Brooks, one of America’s fine public intellectuals in his recent book The Second Mountain, quotes C.S. Lewis. I remember reading Lewis’ comment years ago and was delighted to have it brought to mind. “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.” In preparing this conversation with Ray Sawatsky I heard the echo of Lewis’ words. Ray is CEO and Executive Director of the international NGO Global Aid Network (GAIN). They partner with local governments and churches in various places around the world drilling wells where water is increasingly scarce. Our conversation turned and returned to the three transcendental, the good, the true, and the beautiful. We explore the gifts and challenges he was bequeathed through his early formation in the Brethren Gospel Halls, an evangelical and fundamentalist portion of the protestant church with an impact far above its weight. The gifts of the Brethren Church carried a shadow that Ray has struggled with and found his way through. His insight into the brokenness that so often frames human experience, his surprised discovery of the love and compassion of God, and his growing recognition that the two commandments in the Gospel, to love God above all and ones neighbour as ones self has transformed his understanding of charity into a call for “faithful presence” to those we are blessed to come to know.
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