Speaking in Tongues

The August 18, 2013 edition of prestigous The New York Times had an article on speaking in tongues, T.M. Luhrmann was the guest columnist. She is an anthropologist at Stanford specializing in esoteric faiths. This week, her topic was “Why We Talk in Tongues;" an intriguing topic for most readers. Why is this strange practice a part of the Christian faith?

Luhrmann recently was in Africa to learn more about the new charismatic Christian churches that are now proliferating sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ghana and Nigeria. When we include Asia in this charismatic mix, we will find that the practice of speaking in tongues has become (again) a major practice of those who follow Jesus.

For those of you unfamiliar with the practice outside of Paul’s epistles to the Corinthians where he both lifts up and cautions their use, "speaking in tongues" is the use of vocal, language-like sounds as a form of prayer. It is a language that users believe that God knows but they do not.

Luhrmann found the practice seemed to make people happier. For centuries, after the Apostolic period, speaking in tongues seemed to be lost until it suddenly emerged in Los Angeles in 1906 at the Azuza Street Pentecostal revival.

Most tongue speakers see their practice as a spiritual gift from God; a gift that can neither be forced or controlled. At one charismatic American evangelical church that Luhrmann studied she found that about a third of the members occasionally spoke in tongues and usually when they were alone. Similarly, the Pew Research Center, an organization that closely watches church trends in the U.S., reported that 18 percent of Americans speak in tongues at least several times a year.

“What dawned on me in Accra (Ghana), Luhrmann wrote, “is that speaking in tongues might actually be a more effective way to pray than speaking in ordinary language – if by prayer one means the mental technique of detaching from the ordinary world, and from everyday thought, to experience God.”

Those who speak in tongues report that as their prayer continues they feel increasingly more involved, lighter, freer, better, and yes, happier. Scientific research of tongue speaking using M.R.I. scans reveals that those who pray this way enter a different mental state. For example, they experience less blood flow to their frontal cerebral cortex indicating they behaved as if they were in a less-than-normal decision making state.

There are a lot of Christians out there who still remain guarded talking about speaking in tongues let alone sharing that they engage in this form of prayer. There is a sense that those who do so are somehow less than a fully-developed Christian. Or considered to be practicing something that would better be left in Appalachia or for those less educated.

For me, it was good to read this article about something I consider to be one of the spiritual gifts given to the early church and one that has helped me in my faith-walk. I first learned about the practice when I joined Anglican evangelist Michael Green at Regent College for a revival week in Mission, Canada, just  outside of  Vancouver in the early 90s. It was at the beginning of my discerning my call to ordained ministry that I noticed a number of Episcopal/Anglican seminary students that practiced the gift.

During my time with them, they prayed for me to receive this gift. I remember the evening as clear as it was yesterday. But nothing happened (or so I thought). A number of years later, I was attending an Alpha Course leader's training conference on the Alpha Course, when suddenly many in attending started singing in tongues. Later, one of the presenters told us about his experience praying in tongues when his mother was dying. A time in his life when words could no longer say what he was feeling. Years later, the same thing happened to me. 

I guess the best way to put is like this: sometimes when dealing with overwhelming grief (or even joy) words are not enough. Times when words cannot express your feelings to God. It is during times like this when the gift literally kicks in for me. I was able to “let go and let God” through “tongues” and felt the resulting flow of peace – you know, the kind that "passes all understanding." This spiritual gift has subsequently enabled my ministry and made me present for those around me who were experiencing great grief, loss, or pain in their life.

     But remember, just as Paul warns us, if speaking in tongues is not bathed in love then we are as "clanging cymbals" -- noisy and not worth much. There are also a number of spiritual gifts mentioned in the Bible far more important than speaking in tongues: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles and prophecy [1 Corinthians 12:8-10].

     Many of us out there who come from the so-called "mainstream" church don't often talk about this gift. Nevertheless, you might ask, "How do I begin?" First of all, you ask God for the gift. It may also be helpful for you to find two or more persons you know who have the gift and ask them to pray with you. God’s timetable is usually not ours. And, if at first, you do not receive the gift keep pressing on. One day when you most need it, it will be there for you.

A Two-fer!

We live in a busy world. Often we are too busy to exercise, mediate/pray, loose weight, or get other addictions we have under control.

Here's an idea. I have something for you that has worked for me -- a way to exercise and meditate/pray at the same time.

The method is simple. You walk -- alone or with someone (or run, cycle, or other form of exercise and pray/meditate at the same time.

Simple? Certainly. But taking on something new or getting rid of something old is about change. And change is difficult and that's why it needs our discipline to set a date and time and then DO it -- and continue to do it.

When we do we get no only the healthful benefits of exercise, but also the spiritual benefits of thinking of, and praying for, others.

 Just before writing this I went on a beautiful, rural morning ride on my bicycle as I listened to the prayerful music of Hillsong on my iPod. When I got home I felt refreshed by that music as I blessed my friends and family as I pedalled along the road.

So, why not start today?

Empathy -- It's What Makes Us Human

Many of you who follow this blog know that my wife, Sabine, has been fighting a so-far incurable blood cancer called multiple myeloma. Recently, a friend of mine alerted me to a powerful 4-minute video that seemed to capture for me my life in the medical system.

As Sabine and i make our twice weekly visits to the cancer center at U.W. Hospital, our monthly consult with her oncologist, Dr Sheehan, and our monthly group meetings with fellow cancer and kidney dialysis patients, this short video captures my feelings...

Try Kindness

Last May, Professor George Saunders of Syracuse University gave what I believe to be a knockout address to the graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences. A friend of mine alerted me to it. Saunders started out with this:

“Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

“Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time ‘dances,’ so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: ‘Looking back, what do you regret?’  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.”

Humor seems always to lurk within the telling of great truth. But Saunders quickly became serious when he told about something he regretted in his life:

“ What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like ‘knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?’  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked?  And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?  Not so much…”

But what he did regret was this. And it harkened back to his days in seventh grade and a classmate of his. 

“Ellen was small, shy.  She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.  When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

“So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (‘Your hair taste good?’ – that sort of thing).  I could see this hurt her.  I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked…”

 “Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. “And then – they moved.  That was it.  No tragedy, no big final hazing… End of story.”

What Saunders regretted was that this event in his live was a failure of kindness on his part. Forty-two years later he is still thinking about it. Those moments in life when another human being right in front of us was suffering, and we didn’t do anything bad, but we didn’t try to be kind.

And that was Saunders message to those young graduates – Try to be kinder and see what happens.

But why aren’t we kinder? What prevents us from being so? Saunders relates three important things that keep us from being kind. We are all intimately acquainted with each one of them...

“Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

“Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.”

And the way, he suggests, that we might DO this, to become kinder, is to essentially grow into it – intentionally being “more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional…”

He concludes:

 “There are ways [to become kinder].  You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.  Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend;  establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition – recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us…

 “So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up.  Speed it along.  Start right now.  There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness.  But there’s also a cure.  So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life…

“And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been.  I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.”

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