Speaking in Tongues

Last night I was sitting in the waiting room at Kaiser waiting for dad to come out of surgery.  There was a large group of family and friends sitting and visiting with each other as they waited for news of their loved one who was in surgery.  They were chatting and laughing and just being there for each other.

By that time, I was bone tired.  I had been up with dad in the emergency room for most of the previous night and I had been at the hospital about 12 hours already that day.  (Later when the surgeon came out to tell me the results of the surgery, he sent me home to sleep.)  I was reading a book, so I didn't notice at first that this group had formed a large circle.  It wasn't until they got pretty loud that I looked up to see what was going on.  It seems like they were all praying out loud as fast as they could.  Some people were just repeating a single phrase (like, "Thank you Jesus") over and over.  Others were obviously working on something more complicated.  In the midst of all this human sound and emotion, I could hear that one of the ladies had started "speaking in tongues".

This is something that, it seems to me, has fallen out of style.  Maybe this is because I no longer live in the Deep South.  Some Christian sects believe that it is a sign of piety, or the spirit being with a person that they start saying words that aren't from any discernible language.  Sometimes when they are speaking in tongues their voices change and they sound like someone else.  As a child I had seen this a couple of times and was singularly unimpressed.  It seemed to me like the person doing it was putting on a show to make people think that they were somehow more blessed than anyone else there.

But last night it was different.  (Maybe I was too tired to be unimpressed.)  In the midst of all this chanting of thanksgiving there was one voice that seemed so open to what was going on, that the person felt free enough to just let the sound out of her, however it was going to come out.  It sounded like release.  I don't know that it sounded like someone talking through her, as much as something coming from inside her that she didn't have the words for.