Moral Injury and the Power of Lament
A few months ago I worked through the following ethical situation with a group of service members: You are stationed near a river, which is the boundary of your authority, and the Rules of Engagement clearly state you cannot cross the river. You discover that a violent act of genocide is imminent… right across the river. What do you do?
For those Star Trek fans out there, it’s a Kobayashi Maru situation—you cannot win. You either intervene, breaking the Rules of Engagement and facing a court-martial and even potentially starting a war in the process, or you watch innocent people slaughtered when you could have prevented their deaths.
So… what would you do?
In a sterile, safe classroom, these situations can be fun, thought-provoking, and exciting. When it is over you might continue discussing and debating the right action, but not much was at stake. But in the real world, when lives are on the line and decisions must be made in an instant, those in that situation must live with the consequences of any action taken or withheld. For the rest of their lives, they might ruminate and agonize over the outcome.
Over the past few months we have been discussing moral injury in this space. At its core, moral injury is “the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress one’s own moral beliefs, values, or ethical codes of conduct.”1 This violation of conscience can lead to psychological, social, ethical, and spiritual issues such as shame and guilt, as well as a continuing struggle to trust in the morality of oneself or others around them. It may also lead these individuals to question their faith/spirituality, perpetuating a cycle of mistrust and doubt.
Moral injury is not restricted just to veterans and service members, although that is where much of the research has been done. Anyone who has failed to act, not lived up to their own standards/ideals, or participated in an act that they never thought they would, are prime candidates for moral injury.
Throughout the Bible, we find people experiencing moral injury—Peter after his denial (John 21); Adam and Eve after disobeying God (Genesis 3:7); Samson after giving in to Delilah and losing his strength/spirit (Judges 16:23, 28); Josiah, upon discovering just how far the people had fallen from the Covenant (2 Kings 22:11). When an individual or community discovers they have broken their own ideals or conscience, they seem to have some standard practices when dealing with these situations.
Throughout the Bible, we find Jewish believers turning to God in the midst of times of moral injury. Prayer becomes an outlet, asking God to guide and intervene. Sacrifices allow the people to atone for their sin and express their regret. Practices of individual and communal lament become vehicles for the expression of these negative emotions. Israel would gather as a congregation to sing about all experiences of existence—joy and sorrow, happiness and pain, life and loss.
Imagine getting to stand in a group of other believers and to sing words like:
Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?...
I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes. (Psalm 6:1-3, 6-7)
While these don’t typically make it into our favorite worship songs, they are true expressions that help us deal with the emotions that accompany trauma and moral injury.
But many of us have sung snippets of these ideas: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me….” Many Jewish and Christian believers throughout the centuries have found comfort in the words of Psalm 51. The psalm stems from the story of David and Bathsheba. David commits adultery, then is complicit in multiple murders (Uriah and those with him), before taking Bathsheba as his own; “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Samuel 11:27b). When Nathan forces David to confront his sin, David pens Psalm 51 as a response:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me…
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (51:1-2, 5)
He recognizes his own failings—the fact he has fallen short of his own conscience. The only recourse is to come to God:
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (51:10-12)
I have grown up singing this text as a song in church and youth group, and these words have given me comfort and direction when my own life doesn’t measure up to my ideals.
For those who experience moral injury, lament can be a powerful tool in expressing those emotions and experiences. We lament over what was and where we felt powerless, worthless, or hopeless. Moral injury can cause us to turn inwards due to guilt, grief, or shame. Lament exposes dark deeds to the light and brings God’s mercy and grace to bear, for lament almost always ends with hope: Things aren’t what they are supposed to be, but with God there is forgiveness and restoration.
What would it look like for us to practice lament in our congregations? Or in our small groups? In our outreach?
