A Reverence for Life

Bob Echols

For Our Animal Friends

We are nearing the end of this voyage, our voyage to become

acquainted with a reverence for life and some of its rudimentary

elements. Future voyages will seek ways of proclaiming and applying

a reverence for life, but for now let’s be content with learning the

basics.

Most recent ports of call have reminded us of Dr. Schweitzer’s search

for a moral principle that was at once spiritually derived and created,

yet perfectly suited to widespread terrestrial application.

Time now for our stab at a definition of the principle: what is a

reverence for life?

The grand doctor has provided us with many definitions, and we’ll

work through some of those as we progress. Here’s his fundamental

rendering:

“The ethic of a reverence for life is the ethic of love widened into

universality.”

That raises two questions:

Whose love?

How broad is universal?

As to the first query, it is seemly to recall a short portion of the prior

blog:

It is the psychic connection with existence itself that contributes to an

understanding not only of the other beings on our shared planet, but

how we are to deal with them, our behavioral obligations towards

them. Such information, flowing from the unsurpassed awe that the

miracle of existence radiates, links us, in the mind of Dr. Schweitzer

with the Creator and the Creator’s purposes.

As we are connected to the Creator, it is the love of God we are bidden

to seek and share, infinite, unconditional love. Will we fall short on

occasion? Of course. But that must only serve as an impetus to

engage again and again in bestowing affection.

And universality?

Our duty includes all God’s creation; all creatures may lay claim to our

love, love that is to be unbounded, fathomless, ubiquitous, indeed

universal.

Dr. Schweitzer gets the last word:

“The human spirit is not dead: It has come to believe that compassion,

in which all ethics must take root…can only attain its full breadth and

depth if it embraces all living creatures…”

In sum, through a mystical nexus we allow the love of God to flow

through us into all God’s creation.

That is a reverence for life.