On an evening in late June, my friend Kenneth Holway was riding with another police officer when they spotted black smoke coming from a Cambridge triple-decker apartment house. Without hesitation, Officer Holway and his partner stopped the car and ran to the top floor of the building from which the smoke was billowing.

There they found a  62-year-old resident, a man who was surrounded by flames. He already had serious burns on his legs that made it difficult to hold him. Nonetheless, with help from the other officer, my friend hoisted the resident on his shoulder and together they carried him down the staircase.

Last week I talked with Ken Holway about this harrowing experience. “It was one of those things: your adrenaline gets going,” he told me. Referring to the need for immediate action, he added: “If it was another second, he would have died.”

According to my friend, in a crisis situation like this you’re not sure what you are doing. What struck him most and made him act fast were two panicked words coming from the resident: “Help me.”

When I asked what went through his mind just after rescuing a fellow human from death, Ken Holway shared some of his reactions. “I collapsed down on the ground and thought ‘that could have been it.’ But you do what you have to do.”

Not surprisingly, he has relived the frightening experience in his mind many times. If he needed a reminder in succeeding days, his aching body helped bring him back to the event. “I felt sore physically,” he says.

In response to my questions about spiritual motivation, my friend, like just about everybody else, finds it difficult to talk about it. One thing is clear, however: the faith that has marked his whole life is vital for him. “It makes me feel good, going to church every Sunday,” he says of the power that comes from his religious practice.

In defying fire and smoke to rescue another person, my friend surely knew how much he was risking. The need for action left precious little time to think, but his thoughts undoubtedly turned toward his wife and children. He knew what they and he would lose if he did not emerge from the inferno.

His sworn duty to serve members of the community, however, trumped even his ties to loved ones at home. He had taken a police officer’s oath and it remained sacred enough to make him respond immediately when another’s life was threatened.

The exact words may not have echoed through his mind at the moment of pressing danger but his spirituality has almost surely been shaped by the words of Jesus: “Greater love than this no man has than to lay down his life for his friends.” In this instance, of course, the friend was simply a fellow member of the human community.

Facing danger in response to the call of duty is nothing new to this police officer. When still a teenager, he served his country in the Vietnam War. Only 20 on his return from military service, he determined to find other ways of serving the public and, years later, got the opportunity to join the Cambridge police force.

Ken Holway does not consider himself a hero, but I think him one. And I am not alone in this view of him. He has received letters from ten other residents of Cambridge, thanking him for serving our city so well. These other ten are unknown to him personally but he is touched that they have responded this way.

Knowing a hero up close is to me a spiritual gift. News of what he did has buoyed up my morale, giving me renewed hope for the human family. If this one man can respond to the call of duty like this, then perhaps the rest of us have greater possibilities than we usually dare think.

Not surprisingly, the excitement I first felt when reading about this event has receded. However, having a bond in friendship with a man who has shown such heroism continues to feed my spirit. Ken Holway thinks of himself modestly, but to me he embodies a nobility of soul that makes a difference.

Richard Griffin