Our world is beautiful because it is full of life. One of the great lessons of creation is that life, though it seems fleeting at times, is still worth creating. Flower gardens bursting with color, oceans crowded with fish, and towering trees heavy with fruit stand as monuments to the dynamic beauty of life in all its forms. But life’s most beautiful creations are not in flowerbeds and tree branches but in human hearts. And the same spirit of reverence for life that typifies nature can also beautify the landscape of our lives.
In 1905 Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a religious leader and organist in Germany, gave up his pulpit to become a physician, though he never stopped teaching. With full purpose of heart, he moved to Africa and spent decades there operating a hospital for the poorest of the world’s poor. He described his work with a simple phrase: “Reverence for life.”
In a tribute to Dr. Schweitzer, one writer said, “If Schweitzer had done nothing in his life other than to accept the pain of these people [of Africa] as his own, he would have achieved moral eminence.”¹
He was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, but to Dr. Schweitzer, “reverence for life” was not a medical or humanitarian accomplishment but simply an expression of the rich goodness that comes from the soul. “Just as white light consists of colored rays,” he said, “so Reverence for Life contains…love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness, power to forgive.”²
Are not these virtues the true beauties in the garden of life? And they exist within all of us, though too often we allow them to become dormant.
May we nurture and grow these virtues in our hearts and then share them with others. May we demonstrate by our actions our own reverence for life.
Program #4058
¹ Norman Cousins, in The World of Albert Schweitzer, sel. Norman Cousins (1984), 10.
² The Words of Albert Schweitzer, 37.