While I was sorting old books from my father's library, a yellowed envelope tumbled out. It was a letter I had written when I was about 11 years old, addressed to Dr. Albert Schweitzer. I was ready then and there to join him. The letter (never mailed) brought back the fascination and inspiration that his biography had evoked.
Years later, when a group of colleagues reflected on what had inspired us to work against world poverty, Schweitzer's name came up repeatedly. It was true for
Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, who chaired the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for 14 years: he saw Schweitzer in Oslo in 1954 when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and was fired by his example to dedicate his life also to working for a better world. With world attention focused on the Nobel right now, it is worth remembering the life of Albert Schweitzer.
Schweitzer's story has many layers. What had excited me as a child was the example of a person who committed his life to changing the world, spending years as a doctor in the hospital he founded in a far distant corner of West Africa, Lambaréné, in what is now Gabon. But Schweitzer was also a brilliant theologian and a musician, who played and wrote about Bach. He was passionately committed to the cause of world peace, and his
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech is considered one of the greatest of all time.
Gunnar Jahn, Chair of the Nobel Peace Committee in the 1950s,
spoke at the award ceremony about some of the elements of Schweitzer's life that were so inspirational to my generation. Schweitzer was not a brilliant student but, as he later wrote, "As far back as I can remember. the thought of all the misery in the world has been a source of pain to me." Schweitzer had dreams and he carried them throughout his life. "The conviction that we must, throughout life, struggle to continue to think and to feel as we did in our youth has accompanied me as a faithful adviser. I have instinctively taken care not to become what most of us understand by the term 'a man of experience.' The knowledge of life which we adults should pass on to the younger generation is: Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them."
Schweitzer studied theology and music but then decided to work directly to combat the ills of the world. So, at age 30, he began to study medicine. Why medicine? "I wanted to become a doctor in order to be able to work without words. For years I had used the word. My new occupation would be not to talk about the gospel of love, but to put it into practice." When he qualified as a doctor eight years later, he persuaded a reluctant Paris Missionary Society to allow him to join its mission in Africa and that is how, in 1913, he began the next long chapter of his life. He died at his hospital in Gabon in 1965.
Reading now about Schweitzer's life, I am once again inspired, but with a richer understanding of what he represented. His passionate commitment to helping others, lived out in the drama of his African hospital, plus his ability to navigate different worlds - intellectual, musical, medical - seemed an ideal, a heroic example for a young person to follow. But it is even more fascinating to trace the way in which he wrestled with still larger questions and set out challenges for peace and humanitarian ideals that are still vibrant today.
Schweitzer's Nobel speech (delivered in 1954) is a passionate reflection on the evils of modern warfare. He wrestles with the tensions of nationalism, rival claims to land, and the new technologies of war. He concludes: "The only originality I claim is that for me this truth goes hand in hand with the intellectual certainty that the human spirit is capable of creating in our time a new mentality, an ethical mentality. Inspired by this certainty, I too proclaim this truth in the hope that my testimony may help to prevent its rejection as an admirable sentiment but a practical impossibility... Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them."
Jahn, in his tribute to Schweitzer at the Nobel ceremony, highlighted the durable legacy of this remarkable man and his message of hope: "If altruism, reverence for life, and the idea of brotherhood can become living realities in the hearts of men, we will have laid the very foundations of a lasting peace between individuals, nations, and races. We all realize that we are still far away from this goal. It is the youth of today who will follow the path indicated by Albert Schweitzer. All through his long life he has been true to his own youth and he has shown us that a man's life and his dream can become one. His work has made the concept of brotherhood a living one, and his words have reached and taken root in the minds of countless men." It is to be hoped that young people today will find heroes that inspire them to the same heights.
