What's this, 'Speaking in Tongues'?

 

SPEAKING in Tongues?

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I was hanging out with an ole 1980s (English-speaking Indian) friend of mine - who's still holding on, quite successfully i must add, to that elusive thing called 'style'.....which is quite a feat these fashionable but style-less days - and he was mentioning a chinese catholic woman friend of his who is quite into this 'speaking in tongues' thing that, from what i learnt from him, is becoming quite the rage amongst quite a few catholics these days here.  

My first response was, "man, these people, (and their chinese archbishop even) support and revere racist and fascist leaders and governments, can't be bothered about other races and cultures, or learning their languages, and they want to move on to speaking heavenly languages?  Ask them learn terrestrial ones first."  My friend, being Indian, understood the joke and laughed.  Indians from the 80s, being more Indian and multicultural, were quite a witty lot.....till many 'integrated' (more like assimilated), and lost it.  

Anyway, getting back to this 'speaking in tongues' thing.....

I'm Catholic, erstwhile altar boy, and have heard about this 'speaking in tongues' thing since i was a child and from other overzealous 'Christians'.  In the Bible, during what is known as Pentecost, It  refers to the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles and enabling them to speak in other people's languages.  I suppose that was a prelude to them going walkabout throughout some parts of the world and communicating with far flung locals during a time when Samsung couldn't step in with their autocorrect and completely misinterpret whatever they had to say.  Yup.  The Holy Spirit was the first Rosetta, or the Treky 'Universal Translator'.

  

MY FIRST encounter with Speaking-in-Tonguers

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I know this kind of thing is mentioned in other Old Testament parts of the Bible too.  Anyway, my first encounter with people who claim to 'speak in tongues' is with some 'Pentecostal Christians' back in the 70s.  Some of them visited my home once.  And they did this 'speaking in tongues' thing. Well, even then i thought what these guys were up to was questionable.  

There was one point when they would call upon the Holy Spirit to come into a person.  They would place their hand on your forehead and call upon the Holy Spirit, partially in English, partially in Gibberish, to come into you.  And you're supposed to know that it had happened - or your money back....just kidding - when you were suddenly propelled and fell backwards.  But not to worry, there would be two assistants behind to catch you.  According to them, they didn't touch or push you, it was the force of the Holy Spirit rushing into you that caused you to fall back. I think a lot of 'team building' nonsense by exploitative capitalist corporations practiced by gullible wage-slaves, learnt this technique from these 'Christians'.  

So after watching a few being pushed back by the 'Holy Spirit', it was my turn.  So when the leader of this multilingual 'speaking in tongue' bunch placed his hand on my forehead, and told me to close my eyes, i peeked, and saw and felt him push my head back.  So it was the force of his palm, not the Holy Spirit!  I didn't fall back.  I just took a step back.  He chided me, and tried again, and again, and failed.  Then he looked at my parents and concluded that there 'is a strong devil in him'.  Thank you man, better watch your ass.  Years later, i knew he was right.  I'm a devil sent by heaven to kick the ass of scamming twits.  I'm no angel mate, i'll leave that to my betters.   I'm the biggest devil you're ever going to encounter, (in mind, not deed) but who else is better placed to tell you about evil and how to avoid it than a devil with the heavenly gift of conscience eh.  

SPEAKING or Gibbering in Tongues?

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So, let's come to this 'speaking in tongues' phenomenon that is making its round through the world - and could be said to be actually detracting you from God.  

Firstly, i don't dispute that it can happen, that it can be a gift from the Holy Spirit, and all that stuff.  

But before you can claim that you are 'speaking in tongues', there are few checks.  One, it is not something that you can just start spouting when you feel like it; it is something that leaves you in a higher enlightened state; and you will get deep insights that escapes most.  It is something deeply spiritual and leaves you in a state of shock, and epiphany of wondrous proportions, a deep profound communion with Him, a mixture of pain and relief, a conflict between your humanity and your divine calling, and a sense of knowing.  It is not something like a post-coital smoke where you just feel relieved before going back to whatever 'career', pot of noodles, or the same old self-absorbed self.  It is a life-changing experience.    

Have i experienced it?  Nope.  And i have no interest in experiencing it.  I already have trouble communicating with the people around me, and that isn't going to be made better by my engaging in a religious version of Tourette's Syndrome by barking, 'yadda yadda bunga tanga oh noodly poodly me wanna go doodly', at people, and claiming that yammering away like that is a gift from the Holy Spirit - then i suppose Tourette's Syndrome can be classified as a gift from the Secular Spirit.    

You see, rather than assume that i am 'speaking in tongues', in 'communion with God', 'am a special chosen one by the Holy Spirit', i'd rather do my utmost to PROVE that it is true, or at least in my case, try to make that a reality, by what i say in the intelligible languages that i DO speak, in my actions towards people, in my empathy, in my studying and learning, in my critical introspection, INSTEAD OF putting all that aside, and claiming a shortcut past all that by going, 'oo ee oo aa aa, ting tang walla walla bing bang'.  You see, in the claim that i am 'speaking in tongues', i COULD be wrong, misled, giving myself undue credit, just take it as a 'feel good' thing, and have nothing to prove i'm right other than claiming that the Holy Spirit is with me because i can 'yabba dabba doo'.   

Rather, my claiming such a thing is more like a call for men in white to catch me with a butterfly net.  Of course, if there are enough of such people about with more tongues in their mouths than in a box of fish fingers, than i suppose they could demand that we respect it and be sensitive to their allusions to heavenly favour.  

Man, the crap people come up with to feel significant as opposed to confronting the fact that they are just another piece of apathetic ignorant shite-filled cog in a machinery they do not want to question and kick in the shins, is ridiculous.  Seems like one of those tales where one claims to see an image of Jesus having a smoke in a half eaten slice of pizza without anchovies.  

WHAT is this 'Speaking in Tongues' thing?

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Right.  Offending people aside.  What IS this 'speaking in tongues' thing?  

Well, it's a linguistic 'let your hair down' or 'unzip and dingle your dangle without a care in the world' kind of thing.  To let go of language as a whole and just gibber jabba in the hut is the ultimate relaxative - relax+a relieving laxative = makes you go ahhhhh.  You could even look at the beautiful turquoise blue sea and 'gibber' away, and it would be the same thing.  The point is to 'not bother', thus the gibbering.  It's a 'clear the mind of everything' kind of thing.  It's like nudism practiced by, um, nudists who just relieve them of the vestments of social conformity, respect, and subjugation.  It is a great departure from the world of dress, rules, etiquette.  And language that plays a large part in maintaining all of it, making sense of it, enabling us to navigate through it, et cetera, is central to the ties that binds us to it all. 

So, letting go of language, and gibbering away, whilst focusing on anything, be it a plant, the sea, or God, is a way of defocusing from one, and focusing on another.  It is an effort at feeling stupid - jibbering away like that - and accepting it - where it wouldn't be acceptable in 'normal' society.  It's like people who engage in laughing sessions, pilates, or simply acting stupid, just to distance themselves from their daily identities so as to relieve themselves of the stress associated with it.  That's what 'speaking in tongues' for most people is like in consequence.  

Does that mean that the Holy Spirit does not come upon them?

Actually, the inverse.  When you can clear your mind of it all, and even if you do it by gibbering, or just striking a yoga pose and going OMmmmmmmm, and open yourself up to God, yes, i suppose it can happen.  But one shouldn't think that their gibbering is prove that the Holy Spirit is upon them.  It is just a medium by which you can open yourself up to God.  But opening yourself up to God is another problem, as it is largely a 'feel good' thing for most, like 'Sunday Catholics' who just go to church and screw the world the rest of the week, or keep saying, 'allelujah praise the lord!' bless the lord, hoo hoo!"  Those are all just 'feel good' bollocks that amounts to nothing other than momentary goosebumps amongst those within earshot.  These can be mediums of reaching out to God, but not ends in themselves.

If these are seen as ends in themselves, or evidence of being blessed, then it can simply be used to relax you enough so that you can then go back to doing the same shite again?  It is like taking drugs, or a smoke, or finishing that bottle of Famous Grouse in a couple of hours.  One gibbers without drinking, the other drinks and then gibbers.  After all that gibbering, i'd like to hear what yu have to say about things in intelligible language.  If not, stop all that gibbering.  

Such gibbering, i would also liken to abstract art.  You see, art, oftentimes, is an effort to go beyond human language and direct us to something that is beyond it, or beyond our current comprehension.  It is an arena outside of actual human life and extends to that which we are yet to be, or discover about ourselves.  It is that part of potential human experience left out of actual practice life.  A small example would be caveman drawing pictures of people flying.  Art is a yearning for more than what IS.  Just like proper music (which leaves out anything from the Beatles to much of western pop to lady gaga and whatnot).  Jazz does that, amongst others.  

So, the same goes for speaking in tongues.  It isn't largely evidence of the Holy Spirit descending upon you.  It fulfills the same function as art does as described above.  It is for people whom aren't used to thinking enough and beyond to the point that they can get at their subconscious, or make sense of things enough to express what is really going on, what they really want, what they really should be doing, what society should really be like, etc.  So they focus on God and gibber away and FEEL all those things, but which they do not have the words to articulate in actual intelligible language.  It is like quarrelling and whining to a psychiatrist/therapist, and the latter making sense of all that crap by telling you what it means in psychological terms, and what you ought to do.  Something like that.    

In a religious sense, it is like saying the rosary, or like Tibetan monks and their chants, where you just go on and on in an incessant monotonous way to shut the mind down, or shut the mind down and refocus it on something.  In a way, it is good, as it helps to refocus you on what you want to focus on.  On the other hand, the attributed value of it might be overstated.  You don't want to let that lead you to think you are favoured by the Holy Spirit, better than others, to the point you cease to learn with humility from others whom might bear the truth.  In such a case, religion DOES become an opiate.  Dumbing, lulling, rockabyebabying you to sleep in a system that needs you to be active in being inquisitive, skeptical, and revolutionary rather than an animal, subject to evolution and doing your best without questioning the system - like the chinese do as a matter of culture.  

RELIGION is a Science

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Religion is a Science.  Yes.  A Science, with faith, humility, and empathy, leading you to profound understanding, and which is required to realise the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  Jesus Christ, whom i DO accept as the Son of God by the way, was a sociologist, psychologist, philosopher, political philosopher rolled into one big ass joint.  His commandment, "Love thy neighbour as thy Self" has very deep ramifications if you stop all pretentions to being 'the chosen ones' and pay it the thought and learning that it deserves.  

(by the way, western religious secularists whom say that if God can't be studied under a microscope, he doesn't exist, are committing a logical fallacy.  That is like saying that if you can't pick up soup with a fork, soup doesn't exist.)

Putting in 'magic' like gibbering and Zee-Boom-Ba-ing away, or just relying on magical charms to ward off this and that, diminishes the worth of God and the value of YOU whom are created in His image.  These charms are supposed to be a medium delivering you to a higher understanding, not an end in itself that is supposed to make you feel favoured.  That is why i get annoyed when i hear about such 'magic' being practiced by so-called Catholics and Christians, who then go about telling others they know better because they can go, 'gaga goo goo' as and when they feel like it.  If that is a special attribute, you best worship babies for being highly versed in that linguistic form.  

When people start to resort to such nonsense, you know that people have moved on to feeling they have lost all control over their lives, and just want to do some magic in order to claim that they are special and exert some illusory control over their lives.  The same thing happened with the collapse of the 1000 year old Roman Empire.  People resorted to magic, pagan rituals, witchcraft, dancing naked in the forest, etc, to effect some sense of control over their lives.  It didn't work.  And it recent years, with the capitalist system become entrenched, and people's lives becoming even more meaningless, some in the west are resorting to neo-paganism and whatnot, which is gibbering in a pseudo-religious form.  

Gaga and Googoo are pre-lingistic and pre-understanding, forms of language.  It is what people do when they have limited speech abilities or and understanding of things, or limited understanding of things, hence limiting their speech abilities - like american juveniles going 'cool, awesome, whatever' for instance, or the chinese in asia, in the face of systemic top-down evils going, 'it's like that one lah'(that's the way it is).  We need to move from that to more concrete understanding and articulation of things.  And that is only going to happen with our active engagement with reality, empathy, compassion, learning, and moving beyond the severely limiting standards associated with the ideas of wealth, success, nationality, race, etc.  

IN SUM

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At the end of the day, this is what 'speaking in tongues' means to me.  Speaking in tongues can refer, metaphorically speaking, to speaking in other languages, or, in other words, understanding things in other ways, being multicultural, identifying good and evil in all cultures by using the good in cultures to cancel out the evil in cultures, so that you can get, and deliver, a more wholistic understanding of things to people in our efforts to construct a Stairway with a wide ass bandwidth to the Heavens.  It requires constant critical introspection, as the tool with which you see is you, and that needs constant tinkering with, cleaning, pulling through, and cleansing through fire.  

Speaking in tongues is simply taking on all vantages to appreciate anything.  In that, you need to go beyond your own 'language' of familiarity, security, nationality, religion, language, culture, and ethnicity, and 'speaking in the tongues' of all after taking on the best elements of all cultures.  

God made ALL Man in His image.  And to really appreciate God is to make efforts to know and appreciate the best elements of ALL cultures.   It is then that you will know that you never left Eden.  You were just too busy looking in the mirror of self-absorption to see it.

That is 'speaking in tongues'.  It makes you realise and communicate things that people have never heard, never thought of, never realised, and which they need, even if it sounds foreign to them.  That is when you know the Holy Spirit does land on your shoulder once in a while and twitters like a little Robin.  That is when the tongue that you wag can turn waves to tsunamis.  That is when you know you are, at least at times, a recipient of the Gift of Tongues.  

Amen,  and a Merry CHRISTmas to one and All.

edX

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