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Essay 3: Albert Schweitzer's Affirmations of Reverence for Life |
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3
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It is my pleasure in this meditation to examine several ways -
four or five ways - in which Albert Schweitzer articulated his
understanding of Reverence for Life.
Schweitzer affirmed
Reverence for Life
autobiographically.
First, Schweitzer affirmed Reverence for Life
autobiographically. In his
Memoirs of Childhood and Youth
Schweitzer traced his sensitivity to the pain and suffering in
the world back to his childhood, and he recounted stories, now
familiar to us, of his concern for living things from the days of
his early childhood. I quote from the translation by Kurt and
Alice Bergel: "Already before I started school it seemed quite
incomprehensible to me that my evening prayers were
supposed to be limited to human beings. Therefore, when my
mother had prayed with me and kissed me goodnight, I
secretly added another prayer which I had made up myself for
all living beings. It went like this: 'Dear God, protect and bless
all beings that breathe, keep all evil from them, and let them
sleep in peace.' " Again: "I had an experience during my
seventh or eighth year which
made a deep impression on me.
Heinrich Brasch and I had made
ourselves rubberband slingshots
with which we could shoot small
pebbles. One spring Sunday
during Lent he said to me, 'Come
on, let's go to the Rebberg and
shoot birds.' I hated this idea, but
I did not contradict him for fear
he might laugh at me. We
approached a leafless tree in
which birds, apparently unafraid
of us, were singing sweetly in the
morning air. Crouching like an
Indian hunter, my friend put a
pebble in his slingshot and took aim. Obeying his look of
command, I did the same with terrible pangs of conscience
and vowing to myself to miss. At that very moment the church
bells began to ring out into the sunshine, mingling their
chimes with the song of the birds. It was the warning bell, half
an hour before the main bell ringing. For me, it was a voice
from Heaven. I put the slingshot aside, shooed the birds away