Albert Schweitzer Institute of Chapman University
Albert Schweitzer Award of Excellence 2010 Acceptance Speech
Concern America Executive Director, Marianne Loewe
August 25, 2010

Good morning. We are delighted to be here today on behalf of Concern America to accept the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Award of Excellence on this very special day in your lives, Chapman University’s Convocation 2010. Albert Schweitzer: philosopher, physician, humanitarian, missioner, musician, minister. And I would add: lyrical poet, who used his gift to help us see and pause for beauty, even when we are bound up in tasks that seem to demand a different focus, in a world that is in the throes of some kind of a transformational birthing.

Just hear these, his words:
“Slowly we crept upstream on one of the long African errands of mercy, laboriously feeling for the channels between the sandbanks. Lost in thought I sat on the deck of the barge, struggling to find the elementary conception of the ethical, not discovered in any philosophy....At sunset on the third day, at the very moment when we were making our way through a herd of hippopotami, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, ‘Reverence for Life.’ Now I had found the idea in which world-and-life-affirmation and ethics are contained side by side.”

That theme, “Reverence for Life,” pulsated throughout his thoughts and actions. It is a value that we at Concern America hold dear and that we try to live as we engage in our day-to-day mission among impoverished communities abroad: to respect the dignity of all those with whom we work, to participate in the building of mutual trust, in an effort to continue to form true and lasting civil society, by speaking and living with integrity.

Again, we are honored that Albert Schweitzer, the Albert Schweitzer Institute, Chapman University, and Concern America converge at this moment in time and join together to work for a more just and compassionate, tolerant and gracious society in this our world for the time to come.

Thank you again for this great honor.