By George Clifford
Haiti’s recent devastating earthquake prompted me to ruminate some about responding to disasters by giving and praying.
Photos and videos of the aftermath convey some sense of the earthquake’s destructive power. Yet how can most of us comprehend a death toll of 45,000-50,000? My parish has 800 members. My high school had 1600 students. My hometown had roughly 5000 residents. A nearby community has approximately 55,000 citizens. Even after making those comparisons, I struggle to grasp the immensity of the earthquake’s human cost.
History suggests that the immediate outpouring of funds and prayers to aid Haiti will fall well short of the need and quickly taper off. Part of the shortfall assuredly results from our difficulty in understanding the vast sums of aid that Haiti needs. Another factor is distance. For the most part, potential donors know few people (if anyone) who live in Haiti; new concerns will soon cry out for our attention, pushing aside current ones, especially concerns that we do not personally see. Donor fatigue is still another factor.
Underneath those and perhaps other factors lies a basic aspect of human nature. Human beings, according to scientific research, seem genetically predisposed toward reciprocal altruism. Humans help others expecting that the giver, in a time of need, will receive aid. The aid may come from those the person has directly helped or from people within a broader community of mutual interdependence. Mutual aid within a nuclear family, an extended family, a parish, and even a nation exemplify the expanding circles to which and from which the reciprocal altruistic can reasonably expect to give and receive aid. In the case of Haiti, aid goes to the geographic area that constitutes numerically largest diocese in the Episcopal Church, i.e., many Episcopalians will aid fellow Episcopalians.
Three hundred years ago, a natural disaster prompted little international outpouring of aid. Since then, the level of those efforts has gradually increased, perhaps in no small measure because of religious influences, especially Christian ones. In other words, perhaps the world is on a trajectory toward a global community characterized by reciprocal altruism. Certainly, one can point to many contrary signs. However, the prospects for a peaceful world apart from reciprocal altruism seem dim. Reliance on arms, necessary to some extent in the short run, arguably represent a greater prospect for mutual destruction than peace.
Prayer is no panacea. If prayer fixed everything, then the world would be a much better place and donor fatigue would never occur. Disasters might happen but praying people would telescope rescue, relief, and recovery into the rapid and complete restoration to wholeness of all effected. Contrary to the popular ranting of prosperity gospel preachers, prayer simply and obviously does not work that way.
Yet aid alone – even apart from corruption, misuse, and well-intended but ineffectual endeavors – is insufficient. Effectual disaster response also requires prayer. Psychologically, praying focuses the attention of those praying on the need or persons for whom prayer is offered. Continuing to intercede or give thanks for that person or group, sustains that focus to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon the intensity and frequency of prayer and competing claims. Ongoing prayer, if nothing else, ensures that we do not forget the needs of disaster victims.
Prayer, however, is not merely about the psychological dynamics of the person praying. Prayer connects people with God and one another across the spatio-temporal matrix. In some way that I do not pretend to understand, prayer establishes or enhances a relationship between the one praying and the one for whom prayer is offered. Process theologians may conceptualize this happening in God’s mind; Christian theologians more rooted in historic formulations may conceptualize this relationship happening through divine intervention in the world. Proving the connection occurs let alone explaining the mechanisms by which it happens lies well beyond the frontiers of human knowledge. Nevertheless, praying for others makes a difference in the wake of disaster. Our prayers, coupled with gifts of labor, money, and other resources, lovingly expedite restoration.
Prayer is also vital to the work of restoring to wholeness communities hit by disaster because prayer is the only real antidote to donor fatigue. Jesus faced incredible odds in his ministry of declaring, incarnating, God’s unconditional and enduring love for all. He persevered in that mission at the cost of his life. His grave could not contain that love. A significant number of people who encountered him experienced God’s life giving love so powerfully that they were permanently changed. The Church was born and the world set on a different course. The gospels, with all of their differences and rich ambiguities, consistently depict Jesus as a person of prayer, spending substantial amounts of time in solitary meditation and prayer.
To sustain my commitment to loving others for the long-term and in spite of numerous obstacles, I emulate Jesus’ spiritual praxis. Praying for disaster victims in Haiti and elsewhere focuses my attention on them and their needs for the long-term, establishes/enhances a spiritual connection with them, and helps me to have wisdom, courage, and strength equal to the task of restoration. That alone is the cure for donor fatigue. The God who created us with a genetic predisposition for reciprocal altruism also created all people, endowing each with a spiritual nature through which we can connect to God and to one another. This was the way of Jesus.
The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh and blogs at Ethical Musings.