i responded to a someone on another site who was critical of people pleading for help instead of being grateful for being rescued and looting things they couldn't even use...she said she cringed at the idea of outlaws overpowering the powerless but still asked "what do i owe those who aren't even grateful for surviving?"...i posted the following:

personally, i don't think i owe anyone anything...i think i owe God for having spared me and my family, for giving me the resources to help others and the ability to do so...
my debt to God is enormous and i will pay it through others just like others paid it through me when i needed it...
we all think we know what we'd do in the same situation but we don't...we might well know that we wouldn't loot electronics or shoot at helicopters but that's about all we really know -- that we wouldn't do what a small fraction of the thousands of survivors have done...personally, i don't want to think about what i might find myself compelled to do in the same situation as the majority of those survivors...

i'm not looking to hear from the lost because they're lost...i'm not looking to hear from the struggling because they're struggling...who is anyone to expect anything from them...their gratefulness is between them and God, not them and anyone else on the planet...
non-survival type-looters, shooters, rapists, and murderers be damned (i'm pretty sure)...those who are now going into yet another day of minimal water and food, sharing bathroom facilities or outdoor improvised arrangements with a host of others and a host of bacteria, sharing streets or rooms with the dead and who aren't doing anything wrong by pleading, even in anger, for help to stay alive and healthy -- they are the meek...they need earth, not judgement...
of course you cringe because you're human...and what makes you cringe makes it that much harder to deal with the rest of it -- for all of us who can't get there and do the hands on stuff we know we could if we were there, and most especially for those in the middle of it...

it's hard not to get angry out of frustration, heartache, and sorrow for those we can't just pluck out of the muck and make better...it's so hard when it seems like all you can do is watch and hear...
everybody finds a way, somehow, to channel their anger and sense of helplessness into a way that can help...donations are great of course but the sometimes overwhelming feeling of powerlessness doesn't go away with the click of a "send" button...i have to believe prayer is powerful enough to make up for what i can't do...


in light of dotsie's question, i would add that we wouldn't be expecting so much of ourselves if we were confined to a wheelchair or housebound...in effect though, many of us are...
we can't get there, we can't do any of the heavy lifting -- bodies or boxes...
at a terribly challenging time as this we would tend to see prayer as suddenly minimal when really it is the energy that drives those who can get there and who can help out...it's not just the survivors who need our prayers, it's also those who are witnessing their fellow human beings in such dire circumstances...their strength and will is tapped everytime they help another person...they will get headaches, backaches, blurred vision, upset stomachs, constipation, and hunger pangs and fatigue they will ignore...
and who's to say our prayers won't bring us physically closer to helping someone at some point?
many pray everyday when nothing particular is going on and we don't ask ourselves "what else can i do?"...
when all we can do doesn't seem like enough, it might not be about being enough...it might be a signal that we need to change something in our own lives...
prepare now for the next disaster (take cpr training, volunteer to write for organizations that can't afford writers, etc) and that feeling of "not enough" might just wane...