Those who speak in
strange tongues do not speak to others but to God. I Corinthians 14:2
In reading the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, I
was amazed by how much time he devoted to talking about glossolalia, otherwise
known as the gift of speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is a form of glossolalia in which a person utters unintelligible
sounds thought to be a sacred language spoken through him or her by God.
I was introduced to this gift back in the early seventies,
when I was in my second year of college.
I’d begun attending a charismatic prayer group called Lamb of God. They were a group of two hundred or so
believers who gathered in the basement of a church to pray, sing worship songs
and, when the spirit moved them, break into long periods of “Singing in the
Spirit.”
I loved listening to them singing in the Spirit. Every person sang their own mysterious
language in such a way they would all blend into a free-form ecstatic
chant. It was otherworldly, like the
singing of Tolkien’s elves. So when I
was invited to attend a seven week seminar which would culminate in being “baptized
in the Spirit” (and receiving the gift of tongues), I signed up.
For six weeks, I met every Tuesday evening for an hour
before the prayer meeting with a small group of people. We sat in desks for school children and
listened eagerly to different members of Lamb of God share their experiences of
encountering Jesus, being filled with the Spirit, and speaking in tongues. The stories were inspiring and moving. I couldn’t wait for the seventh night, when a
team of LOG members would pray over me to receive the gift of tongues.
Well, there’s nothing like performance anxiety when you’ve
got three or four people laying their hands on you, babbling up a storm, and
expecting you to do the same. I don’t
know what I was expecting. No wave of
ecstasy swept over me. No ancient words
formed in my mind. I was a blank. Finally Claire, who had lovely brown eyes
that reminded me of a deer, suggested I just start repeating a single
syllable. So I did. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it,
then. I just began moving from one
syllable to another until it sounded like something. I was always encouraged to believe it was a
legitimate language, but I could never quite sell myself on that score. It sounded to me more like the soothing flow
of water over stones. That was good
enough for me.
From that time on, I was able to join in the spiritual
singing with the others during the prayer meeting. I realized then it was not only otherworldly,
but put me in a mildly ecstatic trance. I also discovered something else. I didn’t
think in these terms back then, but I found the main gift of speaking or
singing in tongues was the fact it would simply short-circuit my left brain…my
thinking, logical, doubting, skeptical, linear, verbal, unimaginative left
brain.
With the short circuiting of the left brain came something
else: access to the imaginative,
creative right brain. Out of that would
arise magnificent visions, soulful prayers, encouraging words, prophecies of
hope and challenge and healing, like foam cresting on waves of grace. This was everyone's experience. At different times during the prayer meeting,
one or another person would get up and share what he or she had seen or heard or
felt while praying their secret language.
It was beautiful. We were meeting
God in the privacy of our hearts, and sharing it with each other.
I was given to having visions. I can still remember a few. Once I saw purgatory. I was engulfed in flames along with many
others. It was painful only as long as I
held onto whatever was being burned.
Once I’d surrendered my attachment, the pain stopped. Another time, I saw three women wearing a
veil emblazoned with the Franciscan Tau cross.
In retrospect, I wondered if that wasn’t somehow presaging the time I
would spend in Little Portion, the Franciscan Lay community founded by John
Michael Talbot. One was very sober. It was of Pope John Paul II surrounded by
military, and being led away. What that
meant was never clear to me. Perhaps I
was becoming sensitive to the way society was beginning to change in its
attitude towards matters of religion and faith.
My favorite vision was of a fine, gold ring descending to me from
heaven. It was presented to me as my
spiritual wedding ring. I searched high and low for a ring like the one I saw. I suppose it's waiting for me across the border.
Of course, the more I write, the more I start to remember
others. Trips across the desert. Wine-filled chalices. But like Paul says about these things, the
messages that arose from singing in tongues were always very personal to
me. So I rarely shared them. Like Mary, though, I treasured them.
That was many years ago.
I don’t sing or speak in tongues very often anymore. When I try, it feels a little like trying to
relive my youth. I was not even twenty then,
still riding the high arising from my conversion. Everything was so new and promising. I was full of hope, and it filled every unintelligible syllable I uttered.
Now, the sounds feel world weary, full of sorrows, disappointments,
pleas for help and healing…and yet, still achingly beautiful.
I am grateful for the gift of tongues. It reminds me to take risks, to lose control, to be willing to appear foolish, to make up life as I go along. Most of all, it reminds me to trust that maybe,
just maybe, I can hear the Spirit, who is always praying for me with
groans that words cannot express.
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