At least we didn't juggle snakes
It has recently come to my attention that not everyone has been raised in the clutches of a charismatic church and that my mention of speaking in tongues may have been a little too obscure for my international audience (hi international audience!). So to further the bizarre American quirk education of the world, I will now explain how to know if you are possessed by God (a.k.a. "got the spirit", "filled with the Holy Spirit" or just plain "touched").Different churches have different ways of deciding this phenomenon, and depending on denomination it can be anything along this scale:
* Raising your hands in praise (ooh, watch out now!)
* Yelling any combo of "ALLELUIAH!" "OH LORD!" "AMEN!" or "HOOOOOLY LORD!"
* Dancing (in church, this is anything besides clapping)
* Speaking in tongues
* Falling over (usually a straight-bodied fall, back into the arms of people specifically designated to catch)
* Twitching
* Prophesying
* Becoming magically immune to snake bites or able to fly (for the very advanced in their holiness)
When I first encountered speakers of tongues, I was a little concerned. The way it usually happened when I was growing up was that the church service would begin, we'd sing a few songs about God and his blood (lots of blood songs), then the tempo would slow even more and the instruments would loop through the same 3 chords while the congregation bowed their heads and murmered, waiting for someone to pipe up and do their thing. It was always the same 2 people, either an old lady or an old guy. The old lady always said some variation of "abubia shundiay, shumdia shundiaaay". The old guy freestyled. This was always followed by The Interpretation, which was delivered by another member of the congregation in a very loud voice and without fail started with "MY PEOPLE..." and included a mini-straight-from-God sermonette about how we should all be strong, hold on, and things would get better soon. I got used to the rigamarole after a while, and even was confused when my friends from school didn't want to come to church with me (I later found out that one of my friends misunderstood the process and thought she had been cursed).
The origin of speaking in tongues is questionably biblical. The disciples were flooded with the Holy Spirit after the crucifixtion of Christ, and got lovely little flames of fire on their head and were able to speak in languages they hadn't previously known. The great part was that there were people around who also spoke those languages (which, did I mention were actual LANGUAGES) and they were able to understand what the disciples were saying. It was like an instant 1-second language course with bonus kicky flaming hairstyle. How this became a Christian performance art I'll never understand. The church we attended was very serious about having tongues as the most important example of a person's spiritual possession, though. Whenever someone new burst out they'd announce it over the loudspeakers and everyone would applaud. Our youth group seemed customized to training all of us to babble on whenever the music slowed and chord progressions simplified.
Like junior high isn't hard enough without being expected to divinely whip out another previously unknown language on command.
I clearly remember one summer camp, running out of the evening service in tears because I was so frustrated and embarrassed that I couldn't speak in tongues like all of my friends. I tried, we all tried - praying until our eyes hurt from being scrunched up so hard and mumbling for all we were worth, hoping that some day a recognizable phrase would come out of it all. I attempted to use my limited command of Spanish, but coudn't manage to make "donde es el bano" sound at all divinely inspired. Of course now that I'm grown I've met many ex-Assembly of God kids who outright admit to faking tongues and even passing code phrases along from year to year. Phrases that, when pronounced and said properly, could convince the adults that the kids got the spirit. For your enjoyment, here are my favorite three (that I wish I'd known about, oh, 15 years ago). Use with discretion, these are powerful indicators of spiritual enlightenment when placed in the wrong hands:
"I got a Hyundai. A-key-to-my-Hyundai. I got a key to my Hyundaiiiiii."
"Untie my bow tie. Retie my bow tie. Untie and retie my bow tie, cutie"
"Abba stabbed the back of the van with spaaaam."
So anyways. I left that church certain of my unholiness until my recent tongue-speaking extravaganza showed me that what I really needed to get closer to God was a few grande shots of tequila. My level of tongues was so far above the fakers (did they ever bring Trader Joe's into the equation? I think not) that I'm thinking of starting a new denomination to reach out to all the frustrated English-only speaking junior highers of the Christian world. All I need is a bigger bottle of Sauza.
posted by LadyJay @ 11:15 AM
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