When I was young, one of my greatest heroes was Albert Schweitzer... actually, he was larger than life. Reading about him, he seemed to be a real Renaissance Man... someone who excelled in many different arenas... an organist, a scholar, a theologian and preacher, a doctor, healer, and missionary. His life has served as an inspiration for my own. Today, I would like to focus on a theme for which Albert Schweitzer has become well known.... Reverence for Life.
This summer I have had the opportunity to read several books which I just wanted to read. One of them was Pilgrimage to Humanity, by Albert Schweitzer. This book reviews many of the years and activities of Dr. Schweitzer’s life, and one chapter in particular is entitled Reverence for Life. As many of you know, Dr. Schweitzer had a keen mind and did much scholarship, including a treatise on the historical Jesus. He is a self-described Christian, and his comments on Reverence for Life arise from his Christian beliefs. It is my understanding that Reverence for Life is a theme which, while grounded in Christianity, also transcends Christianity. I would like to look this morning at how Reverence for Life is echoed in the Principles and Sources of Unitarian Universalism, as well as pervading our larger culture.
In describing the impetus for his pursuit of a second career as a medical missionary, Schweitzer wrote:
Those of us who through our experience have come to know what pain and anxiety are must endeavor to extend to others in physical distress the sort of help we have received. We are no longer our own-- we are brothers to all who suffer....(p 17)

This sounds very much like the impetus which leads many Unitarian Universalists to focus on issues of social justice, not just in word, but also in action. One of our principles says: We covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. How we choose to do this may vary from one person to the next.... that is the thing about principles... they need to be applied to be meaningful... and their application is up to each of us. Sometimes we will discuss how to apply a certain principle in a particular situation, and we may even come to an agreement. For example, we may decide that we will listen respectfully to each other here, and that we will treat each other with love and kindness. On the other hand, we may agree to disagree on somethings in the wider world- like same-gender marriage, or stem cell research. There are so many things to which the Unitarian Universalist principles can be applied... actually, I can’t think of where they can’t be applied.... but each of us has different life experiences, families, circles of friends and acquaintances...all of which influence our world views. Sometimes I wonder- How can he or she believe that, and still be a Unitarian Universalist? Others may be wondering the same thing about me! And yet, as our great Universalist forefather, Hosea Ballou, said: If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.
I really don’t understand how many of our politicians can argue vehemently against abortion and stem cell research on the basis of “right to life”, and yet endorse the death penalty which is clearly meant to destroy lives. I don’t think most people wish to promote abortions, and many want to find ways to limit unwanted pregnancies through comprehensive sexuality education and availability of contraception. Unfortunately, Abstinence Only education has been the only line of communication funded and available in many of our schools, giving our young people limited and often unreliable information.
In addition to concerns about abortion, stem cell research is a tricky business. Stem cell research seems to hold the possibility of finding cures for debilitating diseases...and yet, it involves destroying embryos, or potential life, in order to pursue those cures.... and yet, those embryos would be thrown out anyway.... In my ethics class we discussed not viewing people as the means to ends, desirable as those ends might appear to be. In this light, I’d like to quote rather extensively from Albert Schweitzer. He wrote:
The ethics of reverence for life seems especially strange because it makes no distinction in value between the higher and the lower forms of life, betweeen the more worthwhile and the less worthwhile forms of life. It is fundamental to it to omit such distinctions.
To undertake to legislate on matters of value among living beings entails having to judge whether they seem to stand, according to our feeliing, nearer to or farther from us men. This means that we are really using a completely subjective standard. Who of us knows what significance attaches to other living beings in themselves or in relation to the world?
If one makes such a distinction, it follows that there are worthless forms of life. To injure or destroy them means nothing. Among such worthless beings, we may find included, depending upon the circumstances, species of insects or primitive peoples.
To the truly ethical man all of life is holy, even that which appears to us from the human standpoint as the lowest. He makes distinctions only under the force of necessity, namely, when he finds himself in situations where he must choose which life he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. He knows that he must bear the responsibility for the sacrificed life. (90)

The history of our world is replete with examples of how some so-called races and peoples have been subordinated by others... Native Americans are the closest to our experience in space, if not in time.... the practice continues today, with genocidal campaigns and wars in various parts of our world.
And people have often engaged in what has been called speciesism - that is, giving more importance to human life than to other forms of life. When some people read the book of Genesis in the Bible, and its accounts of the beginning of life, they interpret it to mean that people should have dominion, or exploitative control, over the rest of creation. Others have read the Genesis account to mean that humans should have dominion, or care and stewardship, of creation. This latter interpretation is more in keeping with the Unitarian Universalist seventh principle: We covenant to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, Actually, there has been a Seventh Principle movement within Unitarian Universalist circles for many years, and there is now a Green Sanctuary movement which engages Unitarian Universalists in concrete steps which can be taken to make our churches and our communities more ecologically responsible and healthy. Many of us have seen the movie or read the book An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore. If we have any hope of saving our world and its fragile eco-system, we must try to recognize that while we are significant players in the web of life, we are just a part of that web.... we are interconnected with all other parts of the web of existence.
The earth has sometimes been described as a lifeboat, in which we are all traveling together. I like that image. If the lifeboat springs leaks and goes down, it won’t matter whether we have first class tickets or are in the baggage compartment; we will all sink with the boat. Some people may imagine colonizing Mars or somehow escaping the mess we have created here on earth. I think that tactic is imaginative, and yet short-sighted at the same time. Our care of the earth strikes me a bit like the behavior of a toddler or a teenager who leaves his belongings wherever they happen to fall, without concern about finding them later for his own use, let alone considering how their presence on the floor, or wherever, will impact on others. I remember seeing a car stop in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, and the driver emptying the car ashtray there in the parking lot. It amazed me, that anyone would do that. And yet, many people throw objects out their car windows, including lighted cigarettes which have started forest fires. It’s mystifying, if one has the world view of dominion as stewardship and care of the environment. But it’s understandable if one has the world view of dominion as exploitative control.
I recently saw an animated movie called Over the Hedge. It was a much more light-hearted look at environmental issues than An Inconvenient Truth. I’m glad I saw both films. Sometimes it’s good to see facts, graphs, and maps, and to be educated in that way. Sometimes it’s good to laugh at caricatures of ourselves and others and to learn in that way. The question we need to ask ourselves, though, is what will we do with our insights? How will we change our actions? How will we incorporate a reverence for life into our lives?
The first Unitarian Universalist principle is: We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This covenant is difficult to keep. It says that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person... not just the people we know...not just the people we like.... not just the people who are similar to us in some way... but every person. This is difficult enough, just considering all the different, and sometimes difficult, people in our community, let alone in the world. But reverence for life goes beyond this.... it honors life in all forms, not just people.
I am reminded of something that my husband shared with me- I think it is a Native American tradition- that when hunting, the hunter thanks the prey for sacrificing its life so that he can eat, and he never kills more than he needs. Another Native American practice is to begin any gathering with a prayer of thanksgiving, in which acknowledgement and gratitude are expressed specifically for each type of creature (fish, insects, birds, four-legged creatures, and so on), and for all the elements of nature (sun, moon, stars, thunder, and so on). The ceremonies and practices include gratitude, not wasting anything, and a sense of wonder.
Speaking of a sense of wonder, when I was exploring the theme of reverence for life, I encountered a wonderful book by Rachel Carson called The Sense of Wonder. The description of the book says: Words and pictures to help you keep alive your child’s inborn sense of wonder, and renew your own delight in the mysteries of earth, sea and sky. The book has many exquisite photographs of natural scenes, interspersed with some of Carson’s wisdom. She wrote:
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.(42)

Rachel Carson went on to write that without such a gift from the fairies, a child needs the companionship of at least one adult to share a sense of wonder in rediscovering the mysteries of the world we live in. Each of us can seek to provide such companionship, such sense of wonder, as we approach our world and the people in it. One of the sources from which Unitarian Universalists claim to draw is: Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder. May we all tap into that sense of wonder, continually, enriching our lives as we do so.
Other sources from which Unitarian Universalists draw, and which seem to reinforce Schweitzer’s concept of reverence for life are:
Jewish and Chrisian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves and Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
As I contemplated reverence for life, I realized that it is a way of being... a world view.... an approach to life. I experience it as expanded and fluid, rather than as contracted and rigid. It is based on love and gratitude rather than on fear and anger. It is a way of seeing ourselves as an integral part of the world, rather than seeing ourselves either in opposition to the world or as the center of the world. While we may experience ourselves as the center of the world, each creature in the web of existence is the center of its world, and we are all in this web together. The web has many centers, and no center. What happens to any part of it affects other parts, and the whole. While the web of existence is strong, resilient, and flexible, it is also fragile and alive. May we find ways to promote its health and well-being as we practice reverence for life and maintain our sense of wonder. May it be so.