And God Said, “Let Us Make Them In Our Image:” The Motherlode of Moral Injury

A Prison Chaplain Reflects on the Moral Dilemmas of Motherhood.

My daughter was 17 months old. We were out on a quiet Saturday morning roaming through a shopping mall. My daughter had just begun walking and she was exploring her environment. I was exploring a circular rack of clothing that might fit my ever-changing body. Maybe three minutes went by, maybe twenty seconds. I called out my daughter’s name. No response. I looked behind the rack of clothing and there she was lying on the ground; her eyes were open but her body was still. I grabbed her up and held her in my arms, and she began to seize. Time stood still and I was frozen with fear. In that moment, nothing else in the world mattered except my daughter and the desperate need to save her.

I remember screaming, “Someone call 911 NOW, please!” People began moving fast. Some people stood still like statues, staring at us in mystified disbelief. Then I heard the ambulance sirens over my own voice whispering quietly to my baby, “Stay awake, please stay awake.”

As she lay in my arms, I realized that while I had been mindlessly sifting through clothing, she had been swinging on a bar under the circular rack and had fallen backward onto the concrete floor.

When she fell just two feet onto the concrete floor, my life changed in a split second. In that single moment, I tumbled off the shrine of “Motherhood.” While I had not intentionally placed myself there, I was nonetheless bruised from the fall. For the first time on the pilgrimage of motherhood, I had the profound awareness that I could not protect my daughter from pain, suffering, and hardship. And that, despite this sacred love, I would certainly fail to meet my moral obligation as a mother.

Mothers everywhere who love their children more than anything else in the world cause their children pain, suffering, and harm. Mothers across the world who have an internal and unquestionable moral duty to protect their children cannot always meet that moral obligation because we are not gods.

Over 55% of currently incarcerated women are mothers. And the vast majority of them are single mothers. Seventy percent of those mothers are incarcerated in locations over 100 miles from their children. The consequences of this reality on the children are unbearable when deeply considered. The research on this topic is growing rapidly, and yet public policy is slow to integrate the findings.

Yesterday, in the prison where I serve as chaplain, a few mothers gathered together in the chapel for the Spiritual Parenting support group. We began by considering our image of a “Good Mother.” On the table in front of us were dozens of images of animal mothers: whales, wolves, gorillas, giraffes, dogs, and the like. Each of us chose an image, and we began writing down words that described our image of a “good mother.”

Following silent reflection, we entered the same process, but this time we considered the image of God that we were offered as young children. We chose an image from the table and began writing down words that described our childhood gods.

As we internalized these two images, we took the words on the paper and from them, we each formed a Haiku. A Haiku is a style of Japanese poetry that does not rhyme and is meant to illustrate a common, ordinary shared experience with vivid imagery.

In 3 lines, we formed them in our image.

Mother/ God

1

Close Agape Hope

Home, Safe Memories…

Compassionate, Free.

2

Flowing Water, Safe…

Focused Everywhere,

A Kind Mystery.

3

Down-to-Earth Protector.

Happily Out-Spoken,

Compassionate Queen.

4

Loving Teacher

Forgiveness unending.

This, my Caring Protector.

There are approximately 250,000 children in America who are growing up without their mothers due to incarceration, and approximately 113,000 currently incarcerated mothers. All of these women had an image of the kind of mother they would be to their children, and that possibility was suddenly changed when they tumbled from the shrine of motherhood.

“Let Us Make Them In Our Image”

It is fascinating that in Genesis 1:26-27, God is pluralistic and non-binary. And it is a cultural reality that we have placed God-like expectations on mothers, and that often we place them on ourselves.

But as mothers, we do not live in a Garden of Eden, and suffering, hardship, and pain will come to our children. We will not always be able to protect them, because we are not gods. But then again, in the Christian story of salvation, even God did not protect his own child from pain, suffering, and hardship. And whether we believe in that God or not, we cannot hide from the truth that no matter how sacred our love is for our children, they will suffer and they will experience pain, and none of us, free or incarcerated, are powerful enough to save them from the experience of being human.

The moral obligation of motherhood is not to protect our children from pain, suffering, or hardship. The moral obligation is to love our children through it.

This path for currently incarcerated mothers involves discovering creative and authentic ways of being present with their children, even from 100 miles away. It involves deconstructing what it means to be a mother and dismantling the cultural and religious characteristics of motherhood that often cause moral distress and injury. The path for women in prison involves healing from religious trauma, recognizing the impact of unjust systems on their lives, and forgiving themselves for mistakes they have made in order to survive. 

And the moral obligation of our society is to build more just systems and institutions, and to create policies that prioritize the needs of children and families. And while we cannot save anyone from suffering, we do have power as morally determined human beings. We can love people through their suffering, and we can advocate for justice when they face pain and hardship. 

As one inmate so vividly imagined, we can seek to be:

Happily Out-Spoken, 

Compassionate Queens.