sexy speakin'.

I am painfully self-conscious about speaking in tongues. I shouldn't be honest about this, but I will, because the strength of this blog for me has been its honesty, sometimes its naivete.

I wonder if it's possible to speak in tongues "wrong." Can I do it the wrong way? Would someone listen to my experiences, and say, "You misunderstand, it's actually like this"?

This might not be a popular comparison, but I think I may regard tongues in the way that some evangelical Pentecostals regard sex. It's new and exciting, and though there's talk, the details are kind of fuzzy. Unknowing, they have a general idea of what goes down, and some parts are wonderful, but they still might wonder...am I doing this right?

I've been asking myself that about speaking in tongues--am I doing this right?

Maybe, maybe not. Whatever I'm doing, it feels good. There's joy in my communion with God that is qualitatively different from what has come before. So I guess it doesn't matter so much if I'm getting it "right." Right?

The perception seems to be that tongues are an out-of-body experience--that you suddenly become some kind of tongues warrior from on high, a fluent speaker of gibberish in 0 to 70. That's not my experience. While deep in prayer, and waiting on God, I'd hear the syllables rolling in my head, at first uncertain as to what they actually were. And then I realized. And I would open my mouth to let them come, and then shut it, saying silently, no--I can't, it's too weird. Until I didn't shut my mouth. Until I let them come.

My experience is neither out-of-body, nor pedestrian. I feel the words in my heart, and I choose to give my voice over to them. But I have to choose. They won't be forced from me.

This is risky, this kind of admission--maybe I am doing it "wrong." Maybe I am completely foolish, or childish or naive, or silly.

Yet, I've already taken an overwhelming chance in admitting that I've prayed in the Spirit. That's something that I cannot expect my friends, family or professors to understand or take kindly to. I've crossed a pretty serious line.

What then is the worry?

I trust.