Aha!

A while ago I mentioned briefly this feeling I've had at times in churches when I try to let go.  There's two reactions: uncontrollable crying and desire to tear the place up.  This happens when I try to open up to God in the service.  Not every time, but a lot of the time.  See usually, I sit quietly, but feel a bit like I have to strap myself in the seat...restrain myself you could say.  So I have various techniques for doing it.  Over the years they've become habitual and I don't really think about them that much.  This lets me get through the service without making some kind of scene. But when I decide to see if God is doing something; open myself up to whatever He has in that moment.  These are often the reactions I get.  I have never known why.

In the last post that mentioned it, I ended up going off in another direction and never explored it.  But then today, I tried again as I watched all these people doing similar behaviors, one arm raised, head to the side, swaying to the music, hands clutched to chest, etc.  I was thinking, is this just mimicry picked up from watching others and assuming that's what it looks like to have a spiritual experience of worship, or is it something universally real that I am missing?  So I opened myself and asked God to tell me what He was doing.  I felt the old desire to tear the place up!  So I quickly shut it down...but not before the thought hit me in connection with a recent Facebook post I made which quoted a modern adaptation of Isaiah 1:11-17.  I had posted it after reading it because it affected me so dramatically at the moment.  This connection was fleeting, but lingered long enough to make me question...am I really connecting with God's heart here?

Is my desire to tear up the place coming from His sorrow and frustration at the facade of religion that obscures who He is?  This is not unfounded.  Jesus tore up the temple courts in Jerusalem for the same reason.  There are many verses in the Bible where God expresses his displeasure at this very thing and the destruction it would cause.  Could the tears also be the other side of that coin?  Anger is just an expression of hurt, as is sorrow.  We feel both at the same time on many occasions.  Since our image is God's it follows that He feels it the same way.

So I delved a little deeper into that feeling and discovered that there isn't any malice in it.  I don't want to hurt people; I don't even have any ill will.  I just want to tear out the facade.  So I thought, what would I say if I did it?  This is what I discovered:

I would charge the stage, take the mic and as I set about tearing apart the decorations and apparati, I'd ask everyone if God was real to them.  Is He really real to them?  Is this all they expect?  Wake up and for once follow their hearts fully!  Let's see God really show up then and there!  I'd jump across the rows of chairs toward any person who responded, climb the light fixtures and rafters and bring the place into chaos.

No doubt most people would be terrified and I'd probably be tackled and drug out screaming...but if God did show up, there would be a moment like Pentacost...the real deal, not the equally fakey occurrences that happen weekly amongst groups of the pentacostal bent.

Has this ever happened to you?  Have you ever longed for something so real and hated the falsity of anything less?  Have you felt things inside you that you aren't sure where they come from?  If so, don't settle. You're not alone and perhaps even less alone than you think.

God of Mosh

I recently went to a place that had a session about spiritual experience in the charismatic sense. While not rising to the point of "charismania" as in people falling over and such, it was something different.

I kept an open mind. But the belief that "speaking in tongues" (meaning jabbering unintelligible and repetitive syllables) is a sure mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit on someone is hard for me to swallow...pun intended. Now I love these people. I know many of them and I have not found a more genuine, giving, loving group anywhere. I'm dead serious about that. But I don't know about this thing.

Sure people will come up when you repeatedly ask them to with music playing and hype to excite them. Who that genuinely wants to know God wouldn't hazard the experience if it truly was real and the excitement makes us feel bold. But people dance on tables at bars and go crazy at concerts too for the same reason...even nondrunk people. I've seen it.

So I was there and part of me wanted to try it too. Just to see if it would occur beyond myself. I'm a skeptic really. But I didn't go because I hate being pulled into something I don't want to do and once up there, sure enough, experienced people came up and were asked to start praying in tongues with each person until the new people started. This is mass hypnosis at it's classic! You get four people who obviously want something to happen and are emboldened by the hype and then have modelers right in their ears encouraging them with things like, "hamshalasonda amelashonda" said over and over again. It just sounds hebraic. Others use different sounds. Of course they'll feel the urge rise up and begin to do it. But if I didn't, then I'm refusing the Spirit or something. I just couldn't do it there.

Now I think there is a possibility that it might be real. If so, it's never happened to me, though I know I've had spiritual experiences which are ranked pretty intense by people who study these things. Even others who are far more active and prominent for God haven't done it. Does that mean they're missing something? Obviously if jabbering like that is a real spiritual experience it isn't one that indicates any kind of status. So what might it be?

I think I know. Whether inspired by God or just part of the human condition, it is a release. It is an unburdening of the spirit simply by letting things go for a time. This I have experienced. But for me it isn't jabbering. It occurs in movement.

I remember the first time I discovered dance. Just free expression through movement. I was hooked. But it wasn't until I entered a mosh pit that I had what I would truly call a spiritual experience. I'm not kidding! If people can jabber (I actually heard someone saying "blah, blah, blah" as their "spiritual language") then I can thrash. You see, it isn't about hurting people or any of the other things you might have heard...though that can occur. At the best moshes, it is simply unbridled physical expression. Bodies moving and giving kinetic voice to the passions inside them. Everyone has a different "language" or style. Some lyrical, some angry, some bouncy, some vertical, some horizontal, some arms, some legs, some heads. Bodies impact because they are sharing the experience. Just like mystic tribal ceremony pain is ignored, not even felt in the euphoria. Truthfully, I can't wait to do it in front of God. To stand in His manifest presence and hear the music of all music and let it all go. Even David moshed wildly in his underwear in shear joy!

I found God in a mosh pit. I have felt the Spirit descend upon me and I have moved uncontrollably, untiring, for sustained periods of time which I am not even aware of.

And it's not just moshing. Later, after that scene had closed down in my area, I orbited into gothic circles and found similar experience there in a more raving and technical style, yet still as free and released and unique.

Now I thank God for this gift, as He is the giver of all good things. I also recognize that most of the people around me were not doing it for Him and may even outwardly reject Him. But that is precisely His mercy in action. He gives His release even to those who do not deserve it. We are all brothers in the pit. One unity.

Of course I've seen it perverted and usurped, but a good pit will even recapture that from those who would destroy the purity of it. And even some bands were good about preserving their pits as places of joy and release rather than perversion and destruction. But isn't this remarkably like "speaking in tongues", down to the guidance from the pastor and the order preserved by the crowd?

So as I was sitting there meditating on this in the midst of the cacaphony, I felt a slight uplift. An urge to release myself. But it was not to speak. The only urge I had was to tear up. I wanted to rip down the stage, knock people over, tear the cords from the horrible singers mic and keyboard. I didn't hate anyone. I wasn't mad. I just wanted to wreck the place. Why is that? It scares me somewhat, though I know it would probably have abated as soon as the pain from the first punch through the drywall set in. I would only have really gone ape if they had tried to restrain me and make me participate...then people would have gotten hurt, but that is for other reasons which I won't digress into now.

I truly don't know why that feeling comes over me. I have had only two reactions in a church setting when I let it go. First is uncontrollable sobbing. I mean deep, nose running eyes wet heaving sobs. The second is the urge to go wild, to take the place apart. Is that an indication of my true self, or a deep seated flaw in my personality? i truly don't know. But I trust my God to handle me. And I feel His pleasure when I can be so free.

As for speaking in tongues in that sense, I'll have to continue being skeptical until someone can help me understand one on one or until God drops me on the floor babbling myself. I ask that He will show me if it is real.