I used to imagine that my late mother was “religious, but not spiritual.”

She loved going to synagogue, hosting holiday gatherings, lighting Shabbat candles, and keeping a kosher home.

But she did not believe in God.

If I tried to speak with her about a creator, she would say, “How could the world have a beginning? It’s inconceivable that the world could have not existed!”

She had deeply mystical dreams. She told me about them in great detail, always finishing with, “That was complete nonsense! Where did it come from?”

Her conceptual commitment to atheism seemed as strong as any fundamentalist’s commitment to their image of God.

Once, when she was about 78 years old, we took a trip together to Asheville, NC. Asheville is a magnificent place, where the Blue Ridge Mountains meet the Great Smoky Mountains. Mom looked out the car window and said, “Mountains…they give you that lofty feeling…do you know what I mean?”

I did not laugh. I did not yell Hallelulyah! I just said, “Yes, I know.”

I am used to thinking of Mom as theologically unsophisticated. In the mountains, Mom felt “it.” But she did not have the language to explore “it.” And, without that language, she trivialized “it.”

Today, I change my mind. Maybe Mom did have language and knowledge, but refused to believe in something chronically misrepresented and muddled, i.e., God.

This week, as we read in synagogue from the book of Exodus, I’m revisiting Mom’s views about God. Because Exodus explores the tensions between spontaneous and muddled images of God.

At the exact middle — or peak — of Exodus sits God’s instruction “Make no statues or pictures of ME, using anything in heaven, on earth, or in the water.” Shortly after receiving this teaching, the Israelites worry that Moses has abandoned them. So they melt down the mens’ gold jewelry, smelt it into a calf, call it God, and celebrate a holiday. And learn: this is exactly the kind of picture God said not to make.

Yet the rest of Exodus turns our attention towards images of God everywhere, in heaven, earth, and the human heart.

At the burning bush, Moses learns that God’s name is ehyeh asher ehyeh — I will be what I will be. Unknown, unfolding possibilities: that’s an image of God.

As the Israelites camp at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God says, “I carried you on eagle’s wings, and brought you back to me.” The majestic, soaring, all-seeing-eagle: that’s an image of God.

After the revelation of the Ten Commandments, Moses, Aaron and seventy elders climb Mt. Sinai. There, they see the sapphire blue floor of heaven and behold God. A Carolina blue sky: that’s an image of God.

Struggling with leadership responsibilities, Moses asks to see God. He is allowed to see God’s aftereffects: compassion, grace, patience, love and truth. These are images of God.

Why does Exodus encourage one kind of image and discourage the other?

The approved “images” are perceptions of God by the human imagination. Perceptions of possibility, power, beauty, infinity, and love, felt by the imagination as numinous experiences.

The unapproved “images” are consciously crafted, expensively produced, and sold in a competitive theological marketplace.

Once again, I see that my mother was three steps ahead of me in all things. Her imagination, her dreams, her quality of feeling touched the Divine. But her mind refused to place the imagination in preconceived boxes. Her experience would be her own.

Today’s reflections only begin to open the treasure chest of Mom’s spiritual teaching. They open on to more questions, textual studies and imaginative experiments.

Still, I share them today. Even though the details are not clear, the mission is: awaken your spiritual imagination, and don’t ever let it fall asleep again.

Image: Asheville, NC. coolmountainrealty.com