The Grand Doctor. The Great Humanitarian. The Revered.

These are but a few of the honorifics bestowed upon Albert Schweitzer, our role model, guide and captain of our journey to a reverence for life — and beyond.

Let me introduce you to this extraordinary polymath, and I assure you no words of mine can fully capture or convey his greatness, much less his goodness.

He was born in Alsace, Germany (now part of France) in 1875, son of a Lutheran minister. He manifested an early interest in and aptitude for music, theology and compassion first for animals, then for all life.

As a young child he composed a prayer for all God’s creatures:

“Dear God, protect and bless all living things. Keep them from evil and let them sleep in peace.”

By the time he reached the age of 30 he already had the following noteworthy accomplishments on his résumé:

Two earned doctorates;

Renown in repairing and performing on venerable church organs;

Author of accomplished treatises on the music of J.S. Bach and the historical Jesus;

Acclaim as a lecturer in philosophy and as a preacher and author of religious tracts.

For most of us that would constitute a lifetime of effort, but at age 30 Schweitzer had not a middle-age crisis but a metanoia, a calling.

Moved by the suffering of people on the African continent, he determined to combat suffering for the rest of his life, as he said, to make his life his argument.

Schweitzer enrolled in medical school, and upon graduation and licensing as a physician relocated to then French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon) to open a medical mission and hospital at a remote outpost called Lambarene, a weeklong slog from the Atlantic up the Ogooue River.

There, save for an occasional return trip to Europe and one to the U.S., he would remain for the rest of his life, treating all God’s creatures whose suffering he encountered.

His preoccupation with the practice of medicine did not deter him from writing numerous books, earning over a dozen honorary doctorates, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and being the subject of cinema biographies.

With the prize money he opened a leprosarium at Lambarene.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he said:

“…[Humanity] 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….”

He involved himself in nuclear disarmament efforts, and had his likeness featured on a medal awarded for animal ethics by the Animal Welfare Institute.

He passed away at the age of 90 in 1965 and is buried at Lambarene in a bare pine coffin along with a bag of rice he used to carry to feed the animals.

He was the inspiration for Rachel Carson’s breakthrough exposé, “Silent Spring,” and about his influence on environmentalism she wrote:

“To me, Dr. Schweitzer is the one truly great individual our modern times have produced. If we are to find our way through the problems that beset us, it will surely be in large part through a wider understanding and application of his principles.”

Next time: The eureka moment on the Ogooue that gave us those principles.

Bob Echols is a Fairhope resident, cancer survivor, hospice volunteer, board member of Unity on the Eastern Shore church, blogger, author, speaker, animal welfare organization benefactor and executive, corporate attorney and ethics officer and U.S. Army veteran.