ALBERT AND ME

Everybody who grew up in the 1950s had heard of Albert Schweitzer. He was that missionary doctor in Africa. The picture of the white-haired, elderly gentleman with bushy moustache, dressed in white clothes, going around taking care of sick people was an icon of the age. At a time when we had monthly air-raid drills at school to prepare for Soviet bombs and missiles, the thought of someone going around doing good deeds provided a modicum of reinsurance. (I don't think I was aware that Schweitzer had won the Nobel Prize for Peace for 1952.)

One day when I was 12 or 13 my friend Bob and I were off at a usual haunt, a Salvation Army Red Shield Store, searching through musty boxes for records. We built our collections of classics from old 78s that we could pick up for five or ten cents each. Bob pulled out a 12" Victor red seal recording of Bach's E minor Prelude and Fugue, Albert Schweitzer, organ. Albert Schweitzer an organist? Under our rules my friend found it so he had first chance to buy it and did. I was intensely curious about the strange recording. (I think it was the only single record Schweitzer recorded, although he did several multi-volume sets.) I had Bob play it for me several times even though he really wasn't a fan of organ music.

Sometime later I made a solo trip to the Salvation Army store on the off chance there was another of these Schweitzer oddities. I didn't find any, but I did find a book by him, Out of My Life and Thought. It was a tattered, paperback copy of his 1933 autobiography. I bought it, took it home, and read it like a person possessed. I would read it multiple times until the pages separated from the spine and I had to keep the loose leaves together with a rubber band. Schweitzer's life and thought opened before me. The son of a Lutheran minister in Alsace. Given music lessons at an early age. Played his first church service at nine years old. Took lessons from the great French organist Charles-Marie Widor. Went to the University of Strasbourg to study philosophy and theology. Earned a doctorate from the University of Berlin in Philosophy. Ordained a minister. Taught and published one book after another on J. S. Bach, organ building, Paul, and the book that turned the study of Jesus upside down, The Quest for the Historical Jesus.

Even as a youngster I knew this was an impressive record for someone who was barely thirty-years old. Strange that nothing turned up in the first 80 pages about becoming a missionary. Then I read chapter nine, “I resolve to become a jungle doctor.” There came these stunning paragraphs:

One brilliant summer morning at Gunsbach, during the Whitsuntide holidays–it was in 1896–as I awoke, the thought came to me that I must not accept this good fortune as a matter of course, but must give something in return.

While outside the birds sang I reflected on this thought, and before I had gotten up I came to the conclusion that until I was thirty I could consider myself justified in devoting myself to scholarship and the arts, but after that I would devote myself directly to serving humanity. I had already tried many times to find the meaning that lay hidden in the saying of Jesus: "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospels shall save it." Now I had found the answer. I could now add outward to inward happiness.

Twenty-one years old and he decided his whole life. Sure enough, when he turned thirty he began seeking the way he would serve humanity. He was leafing through a magazine (this would be important later in my life) and found that the Paris Mission Society was seeking people to work in Gaboon. That settled it for him. He spent the next seven years studying medicine so he would work as a medical doctor in the Lambarene.

This is the quote grabbed my attention and has held it ever since: “For years I had been giving of myself in words and it was with joy that I had followed the calling of theological teacher and preacher. But this new form of activity would consist not in preaching the religion of love, but in practicing it.”

Over the next few years I bought a few more recordings of Albert Schweitzer and read another book, On the Edge of the Primeval Forest. I even contemplated buying a bust of Schweitzer I saw in a book store, but the $25 price tag was way beyond my meager means. It was just before the start of my junior year in high school that I heard the news. Albert Schweitzer had died in the Lambarene at age 90. It was strange to feel such loss for a person I had never met. I wrote a memorial for Schweitzer that was published in Le Grand Baton. And maybe that began working a change in me.

I had long planned to pursue a career in the sciences or mathematics. I was a geek, after all, complete with pocket protector and slide rule. But something drove me more and more in another direction–toward the music I so loved. To my parents’ dismay, I went to college to study choral music and conducting. And I did take some lessons in organ, of course. Always in the back of my mind, however, was that quotation from Schweitzer about practicing the religion of love. During my last year in college I saw an ad in the Lutheran magazine. The Board of World Missions was looking for someone who could teach English and choral music in Indonesia. That was the answer. I sent off a letter at once, filled out forms, and interviewed. The one catch was the person they wanted would also have to coach soccer. I was never going to be able to do that.

The Board let me down easy, assuring me that if the primary candidate didn’t work out, they would be in touch. They hoped I would find my way to serve the Lord. After much anguish, I decided to go to seminary to become a pastor. I could follow Schweitzer’s footsteps that way. So I studied, graduated, was ordained, and took a call to South Florida, a location every bit as exotic as the African jungle.

One day when I was back home on vacation (I thought of it more as a furlough to stock up on supplies), I went into a book store, and there was the bust of Schweitzer I had seen years before, rather worse for wear, being sold at half-price. I snapped it up and carried it back to Florida with me. It has sat on a high shelf watching over for me ever since. It reminds me again and again to ask whether I’m really practicing the religion of love.

It is still strange to me how a record and a book led me to finding a hero who so profoundly influenced my life. I continue to study Schweitzer’s words and to reread Out of My Life and Thought every so often, especially when I’m ready to throw in the towel.

I wish all young persons could find heroes to inspire them. They’re hard to come by today. Most politicians are disappointments, sports figures frauds, businessmen too often crooks. Even some very public religious leaders are embarrassments to the Gospel. In some neighborhoods the local drug dealer is the most admired person. He’s got money, cars, and bling. We need heroes, genuine heroes, for this age which so lacks anything heroic. How will people find their way on the pilgrim trail without those who blaze the path before them?

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne