I have the deepest admiration for those people who live their values and thereby leave a lasting impact on our world. High on my admiration list are Florence Nightingale and Albert Schweitzer.
Dr. Schweitzer walked away from a popular and successful career as an organist - he was very good at it - to live out his highest values of service. He retrained as an (adequate) doctor and opened a hospital in the Congo.
This is what he had to say about his philosophical and ethical journey.
“Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase: “Reverence for Life”. The iron door had yielded. The path in the thicket had become visible. Now I had found my way to the principle in which affirmation of the world and ethics are joined together!”
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography. [Aus meinem Leben und Denken.] Albert Schweitzer, author. Antje Bultmann Lemke , translator. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 60th Anniversary Edition (June 11, 2009). pp154-55. Emphasis added.
That phrase, “Reverence for Life” has stuck with me since I found it, and has caused me to re-think my values and their implications over and over again.
I also permanently associate an unbridled herd of hippopotami, with life and reverence.
No hippopotamuses around here, so I videotaped the closest unbridled creature. Mrs. Sparrow and her mate, making short work of my bird feeder in the quiet of the dawn.
