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Motherhood and the (In)vulnerability of the Imago Dei: Being Human in the Mystical-Political Cloud of Impossibility

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Parenting as Spiritual Practice and Source for Theology

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Abstract

Gandolfo draws on women’s diverse experiences of motherhood to argue that human beings are originally and inherently vulnerable, but that the imago Dei in every person is ultimately invulnerable. Maternal narratives give powerful witness to this fundamental invulnerability of the imago Dei, even as it is violated by injustice and violence within the tragic contours of vulnerable human existence. Gandolfo’s reimagining of Christian anthropology concludes that it is the invulnerable power of divine Love residing within us as imago Dei that can both bring us to mystical awareness of the human paradox, and return us to the blood-soaked crosses of history to protest violated vulnerability, seek global justice, and inhabit the shared vulnerability of all humanity with the powers of courage, peace, and compassion.

This chapter originally appeared in Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Jenny Daggers, eds., Christian Doctrines for Global Gender Justice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a more extended reflection on the power and vulnerability of both the human condition and divine redemption, see my book, The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015).

  2. 2.

    Nicholas of Cusa, “On the Vision of God,” in Selected Spiritual Writings, ed. H. Lawrence Bond (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1997), 251 ff.

  3. 3.

    Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1980), 733.

  4. 4.

    The author recognizes the methodological (and political) dangers of speaking of “women’s experience” and “motherhood” in academic (and popular) discourse, especially when such terms contribute to an abstract universalism that elides differences. For an extended consideration of these dangers, see the Introduction to Gandolfo, Power and Vulnerability of Love.

  5. 5.

    Kathryn S. March, “Childbirth with Fear” in Mothers and Children: Feminist Analyses and Personal Narratives, ed. Susan E. Chase and Mary Frances Rogers (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 169-170.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., 170.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., 173.

  8. 8.

    Marcia Mount Shoop, Let the Bones Dance: Embodiment and the Body of Christ (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 79.

  9. 9.

    Martha Fineman, The Autonomy Myth: Towards a Theory of Dependency (New York: The New Press, 2004), 35.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    Val Gillies, Marginalized Mothers: Exploring Working Class Experiences of Parenting (New York: Routledge, 2007).

  12. 12.

    Eva Feder Kittay, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999), 36.

  13. 13.

    Monica Coleman, Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 56.

  14. 14.

    Bonnie Miller-McLemore, In the Midst of Chaos: Care of Children as a Spiritual Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 176 ff.

  15. 15.

    Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 68–69.

  16. 16.

    Rufina Amaya, et. al., Luciérnagas en El Mozote (San Salvador, El Salvador: Ediciones Museo de la Palabra), 20. Translation mine.

  17. 17.

    Gandolfo, 78.

  18. 18.

    Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Institution and Experience (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), 21–22.

  19. 19.

    See Arlie Hochschild, “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value,” in On The Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, eds. W. Hutton and A. Giddens (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), 131. Hochschild is citing the research of Rhacel Salazar Parreñas here, which was later published in Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).

  20. 20.

    Ibid.

  21. 21.

    Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 330.

  22. 22.

    See Gandolfo, chapters 3 and 4.

  23. 23.

    Carol Shields, Unless (New York: Fourth Estate, 2002), 224.

  24. 24.

    Catherine Mowry LaCugna, “The Trinitarian Mystery of God,” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, vol. 1, eds. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 188.

  25. 25.

    Pray the Devil Back to Hell, DVD, directed by Gini Reticker (New York: Fork Films, 2009). See also Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War (New York: Beast Books, 2011).

  26. 26.

    “Welcome to the Momastery (Mom-astery),” at Momastery.com.

  27. 27.

    Amaya, 20. Translation mine.

  28. 28.

    I had the privilege of meeting Rufina Amaya and conversing with her at length on many occasions between 2001 and 2005. While the testimony recorded in Luciérnagas does not touch on her personal faith and resilience, her comments to me indicated that she drew strength to speak and to go on living from an interior divine source.

  29. 29.

    Gbowee, 72.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 47.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 130.

  32. 32.

    See Melton’s website at www.momastery.com.

  33. 33.

    Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life (New York: Scribner, 2013), 248.

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978), 241 and 283.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 284.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 186.

  38. 38.

    Nicholas of Cusa, “On the Vision of God,” 246.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 250–251.

  40. 40.

    Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1910), 8.

  41. 41.

    Nicholas of Cusa, op.cit., 251 ff.

References

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  • Hochschild, Arlie. “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value.” In On the Edge: Living With Global Capitalism, edited by W. Hutton and A. Giddens. London: Jonathan Cape, 2000.

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  • Kittay, Eva Feder. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge, 1999.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

    Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo

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  1. Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Catherine University, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

    Claire Bischoff

  2. Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

    Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo

  3. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

    Annie Hardison-Moody

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Gandolfo, E.O. (2017). Motherhood and the (In)vulnerability of the Imago Dei: Being Human in the Mystical-Political Cloud of Impossibility. In: Bischoff, C., O’Donnell Gandolfo, E., Hardison-Moody, A. (eds) Parenting as Spiritual Practice and Source for Theology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59653-2_13

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