Albert Schweitzers Affirmations of Reverence for Life

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Chapter 3: Albert Schweitzer’s Affirmations of Reverence for Life

Prof. Marvin Meyer, Chapman University

Marvin Meyer presented this paper at the internationalconference on “Albert Schweitzer at the Turn of the Millennium,” held on the campus of Chapman University onFebruary 19-21, 1999. The paper was given as a scholarlymeditation in the context of an all-faiths service, which alsoincluded an ecumenical liturgy, organ music of Bach played by Schweitzer, and African Music and Dance performed by the Dembrebrah West African Drum and Dance Company of Long Beach, California. A slightly different version of this paper appears in

Reverence for Life: The Ethic of Albert Schweitzerfor the Twenty-first Century

, published by SyracuseUniversity Press.

One of the vivid images, among others, that comes to mindwhen I think of Albert Schweitzer affirming Reverence forLife is the image of Schweitzer with his ants. This image hasbeen made memorable by the dentist, artist, and authorFrederick Franck, who lived and worked with Schweitzer for atime in the late 1950s, and described his experiences in hisbook

Days with Albert Schweitzer: A Lambarene Landscape

.Among the charming drawings in the book is one with thecaption “Dr. Schweitzer entertains his ants.” Frederick waskind enough to present me with an artist’s proof of the

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drawing, and I have mounted it appropriately in my studyamong other drawings and prints. The drawing showsSchweitzer at 86, bushy of hair, mustache, and eyebrows,hunched over his writing table, with pages of a manuscripttacked to a wall, sheets of paper on the table, and antscrawling over the sheets. Frederick describes Schweitzerencountering his ants: “For some years he has been watchingthis particular family of ants, a few hundred or a few thousandquite benign and harmless ones, which live in a nestsomewhere under the floor boards of his room. After everymeal he puts a little piece of fish under the kerosene lamp onhis table; immediately the ants crawl up the table leg, walk ina neat line across the top piled with papers, and start to tacklethe fish offering from all sides. It requires five or six of thetiny insects to transport a huge fragment of two cubicmillimeters of fish across the table, down the leg to theirresidence. Dr. Schweitzer and I watched with delight how firstthe softer pieces of fish were chosen in preference to older,harder ones.”

Schweitzer considered Reverence for Lifeto be the elementaland universalethical concept.

Schweitzer affirming Reverence for Life: Certainly Reverencefor Life comes to expression in Schweitzer’s treatment of hisants, as well as his mosquitoes, his chickens, and his pelicanParsifal, but it should not be trivialized as being reducible toonly that. Schweitzer considered Reverence for Life to be theelemental and universal ethical concept; he consideredReverence for Life to be the foundation for all sound moralthought and action; he considered Reverence for Life to be anecessity, a necessary conclusion, of clear thinking andreflection. When Schweitzer affirmed Reverence for Life, heaffirmed the solidarity of all living things and the moralobligation of people who live in the midst of living things.Schweitzer affirming Reverence for Life: CertainlySchweitzer was neither the only person nor the first person toadvocate love and solidarity among humans and all livingthings. But when he affirmed Reverence for Life, he did so inhis own inimitable way, with the variety of formulations andaffirmations typical of the man who did so many differentthings so well.

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It is my pleasure in this meditation to examine several ways –four or five ways – in which Albert Schweitzer articulated hisunderstanding of Reverence for Life.

Schweitzer affirmed Reverence for Lifeautobiographically.

First, Schweitzer affirmed Reverence for Lifeautobiographically. In his

Memoirs of Childhood and Youth

Schweitzer traced his sensitivity to the pain and suffering inthe world back to his childhood, and he recounted stories, nowfamiliar to us, of his concern for living things from the days of his early childhood. I quote from the translation by Kurt andAlice Bergel: “Already before I started school it seemed quiteincomprehensible to me that my evening prayers weresupposed to be limited to human beings. Therefore, when mymother had prayed with me and kissed me goodnight, Isecretly added another prayer which I had made up myself forall living beings. It went like this: ‘Dear God, protect and blessall beings that breathe, keep all evil from them, and let themsleep in peace.’ ” Again: “I had an experience during myseventh or eighth year whichmade a deep impression on me.Heinrich Bräsch and I had madeourselves rubberband slingshotswith which we could shoot smallpebbles. One spring Sundayduring Lent he said to me, ‘Comeon, let’s go to the Rebberg andshoot birds.’ I hated this idea, butI did not contradict him for fearhe might laugh at me. Weapproached a leafless tree inwhich birds, apparently unafraidof us, were singing sweetly in themorning air. Crouching like anIndian hunter, my friend put apebble in his slingshot and took aim. Obeying his look of command, I did the same with terrible pangs of conscienceand vowing to myself to miss. At that very moment the churchbells began to ring out into the sunshine, mingling theirchimes with the song of the birds. It was the warning bell, half an hour before the main bell ringing. For me, it was a voicefrom Heaven. I put the slingshot aside, shooed the birds away

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