Haiti - part 3

In the first of these three essays about Haiti, I focused on reciprocal altruism as a large part of the explanation for why humans reach out to help other humans in times of trouble. The second essay explored the three phases of assistance, donor fatigue, and the limits of reciprocal altruism. This essay focuses on the spiritual dimension of helping others when disaster strikes.

Prayer offers 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 rapid and complete restoration to wholeness. Contrary to the ranting of prosperity gospel preachers, prayer simply and obviously does not work that way.

Prayer in the wake of a disaster is vital for three reasons. First, prayer connects people with one another. On a strictly human level, praying for an individual or a group focuses the attention of the person praying on that person or group. Continuing to intercede or give thanks for that person or group, keeps that attention – to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the intensity and frequency of prayer and competing claims – focused on that need. Prayer, if nothing else, ensures that we do not forget the needs of the 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. Proving the connection occurs let alone explaining the mechanisms by which it occurs lies well beyond the frontiers of knowledge today.

The research that Harold Koenig and others have done on the power of prayer unfortunately proves nothing. Although that work suggests that prayer can make a difference, conducting a double blind study is inherently impossible, as this necessitates having a control group that in all relevant particulars (researchers cannot even enumerate these) matches the test group. Furthermore, researchers have no way to prevent persons unknown to the researchers praying for members of the control group.

Nevertheless, that praying for others can make a difference is an article of faith across religious traditions and constitutes the second way in which prayer is vital in the wake of a disaster. At a minimum, such prayers do no harm and may, coupled with gifts of labor, money, and other resources, expedite restoration. Religion is a matter of faith, interpreting one’s experiences in the life of received wisdom in scripture and through the lives of others, not a matter of sorting the evidence to arrive at irrefutable, factually demonstrable conclusions.

Finally, prayer is vital to the work of restoring to wholeness communities hit by disaster because prayer is the antidote to donor fatigue. Remember Jesus. He faced incredible odds in his ministry of declaring, incarnating, God's unconditional and enduring love for all. He persevered at the cost of his life. The 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 periods of time in solitary meditation and prayer.

If I would sustain my commitment to loving others for the long-term and in spite of numerous obstacles, then I should emulate Jesus’ spiritual praxis. Praying for disaster victims not only (1) focuses and sustains my attention on them and their needs and (2) establishes/enhances a spiritual connection with them, but also (3) helps me to have wisdom, courage, and strength equal to the task. That, and 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 and every great spiritual leader. I want this to be my way as well.