When I heard about Haiti early last night, I could feel, just for a moment, the despair of Port-Au-Prince. But I am safe in a nice home; I am far away from such suffering. Anything I felt was simply imagined.
It is hard for me to pray. I do offer up prayers, but what, really, do I say? It is not as if I know what the scene is like in that sad country. It is not as if I know what should be done. If there is a God, surely He knows what to do; surely He has already heard the news. I ask myself, as I pray, whether I presume to think my prayers matter when there are hundreds of thousands of Haitians crying out, their faces turned toward the stars. I also ask myself if I think I am hoping to phrase my words, and align my faith with those words, in such a perfect way that God must act, that God must respond? Do I think prayer is mere incantation, a voodoo spell?
I am seeing things, I know. I see a nation in abject poverty; I see chaos, death, despair. I see disease. I see crime. I see revolt. I see war. And I see someone, some Venezuelan or Cuban or even an American, stepping forward to intervene, to calm and charm the Haitian people: I see a peacemaker full of political guile.
It's what I see. I wonder what God sees. Better if I just keep my eyes closed.
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