Glossolalia

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. - Acts 2:4

What happens when our language breaks down? 

Flying in a small aircraft from Bangor, Maine to Charlotte, North Carolina last fall I sat next to a mother of two small children. A three-year-old, easily placated by an iPad, and an 16-month-old, whose piercing skirl, punctuated by gasps for air, played as an unwelcome accompaniment to the entire flight. Wheels up to wheels down the flight is a brisk 45 minutes, but the presence of this toddler was acutely felt and couldn’t be drowned out by any noise-cancelling headphones.

“Do you want your blanket?” the harried mom asked. “Crackers?” she attempted. “Baby?” she tried, shoving a life-size doll toward the girl. “Just tell me what you want, sweetie.”

But that was just the problem. The toddler, still in the midst of forming synapses in her temporal lobe, was not able to clearly articulate her wants. The mother was desperately grappling for a peaceful resolution, but the two were at an impasse.

The Journal of Child Development explains a core reason behind the toddler tantrum is not the mere inability to regulate emotion, but is inextricably linked to language centers. A  similar longitudinal study from Penn State found that toddlers with more developed language skills (both in their ability to hear and process language as well as speak it) are better able to manage frustration and less likely to express anger by the time they’re in preschool. 

When toddlers cannot communicate, or when they feel they are not being understood, they reasonably get upset. This quickly escalates into the sharp howling and heel-kicking hell that comes with being in the path of a small angry human. You have witnessed this in your own children, (for me—daily), and if not have seen it at the grocery store as frazzled care-givers hush and bribe children with donuts to survive the checkout line.    

It’s 2020, and for all our magnificent technological achievements, we are still embarrassingly inchoate linguists, sort of adults in utero when it comes to our communication. It feels like those around us are speaking entirely different languages.

We’re angry and misunderstood, throwing tantrums along the way. And sometimes it feels like the more we struggle to explain our wants, our opinions, and our motives, the more upset we get. Often, when we fail to understand or be understood, we resort to grade-school-taunts and name-calling (in public or private). Alternately, we shyly slink away embarrassed and defeated by the process. Is it any wonder then, that a hallmark  ailment of our times is mutual gross misunderstanding, or the even more sinister ailment of willful misunderstanding? 

We don’t get each other, and unlike that patient, beleaguered mom, who had all reason to throw in the blankey and call it quits, we often fail to try, too often content with our limited lexicon. Or maybe it’s simply frustration at the thought of putting in the work required to become the kind of pseudo-polyglots we need to be to truly hear those who we believe are nothing like us.

Where as parents we chide and command “use your words, honey!” how often do we follow this advice? Blame media illiteracy. Perhaps it’s intellectual laziness. But this retreat to the warm wombs of our own echo chambers so often feels like it has become de rigueur behavior for modern communication. 

Peacemaking, as a practice, relies chiefly on understanding —and  is nearly impossible without language. But the olive branch can never be delivered if we shoot down the dove, or blindly refuse to acknowledge its very existence.

In other words, as this sweaty, well-intentioned mom could’ve told you, breakdowns in communication are the beginning of the end. 

____________

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. -  Genesis 11:7

In the beginning, there are glimpses of the end. 

In the beginning, we see an ancient people bloated with such hubris and plagued by such distance from God they begin to construct a tower. A monument to self. And it’s a big one.

The Tower of Babel is an account of Noah’s descendants who set aside true temple worship and build a counterfeit temple attempting to reach heaven through mortar rather than discipleship. Some scholars have even suggested that the tower was built to tempt God. Flood us again, God, for now we have a tower too high for the waters to penetrate and overtake. 

“They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol” D&C 1:15–16

One can easily picture the truly wild scene that transpired mere minutes after all language was confounded: people no longer sharing the same words, alphabets, or even sounds. Frustration follows. Head-banging. A total lack of peace. Probably rioting. Division. 

In our modern-day Babylonia, we often occupy similar ground.

Having ascended up our modern-day ziggurats, we speak once again in our own languages and dialects (“snowflakes,” “deplorables,” un-fact-checked memes, etc.), and are incredulous that we can interpret one news story so differently based on our own translation. When we’re up high on our personal platforms, shouting up to heaven, or more often perhaps down below to whoever will listen—whoever is tuned to our frequency—instead of mutual respect and understanding, there is radio silence. At best, static.

____________

Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. … Go ye out from among the nations, even from Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon. - D&C 133:7

There is perhaps an even bigger lesson for us from this biblical narrative.

The sin of the Babylonians wasn’t just pride. Not only was language confounded to humble the self-satisfied Babylonians, but also to chastise them for their unwillingness to go forth and gather other tribes who had scattered. God had commanded them to retreat from their insular communities and to associate and gather with foreigners, a command they ignored.

The early Jewish historian Josephus recounts in The Antiquities of the Jews:

“[After the flood] God commanded [Noah son’s and their descendants] to send colonies abroad for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God...God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey Him.”

Josephus’s account suggests another reason the Lord chooses to confound their speech—that by doing so they might reach out beyond themselves to go learn of others, and in turn, become one. This proto-Zion-building of Babel should be instructive for what we gain by branching out from our own tribal dialects.

It also models for us a beautifully diverse Zion. (The National Park named for this ancient community reflects this ideal. It’s also a bit like being on the moon: geographically schizophrenic, a place where all colors of earth collide, trees peel out of rocks, all sizes and shapes of plants thriving together in the desertscape.)

Zion, therefore, is not a place that necessitates a literal common tongue, a place that demands we divide ourselves by political party, nationality, socioeconomic status, race, education, or sexuality. Rather it is a place where we are unified in the singular, clutter-cutting language of the Spirit. It is only when the Spirit serves as the great translator that we become one. It is the emollient, nurturing balm of the ages.  

This most famous postdiluvian event is extremely telling in how chaos can erupt from misunderstanding—and it started with this tower, the symbol of man’s ignorance and unwillingness to reach “across the aisle” to those in other lands. May we learn from our history, and improve upon it.

To offer the olive branch, we must first plant in ourselves the desire to understand one another. We, either through divine compulsion re: Divine confounding, or through following our conscience, can and should branch out to digital depths we have not dared tread. Go to the foreign colonies. Interact with the rhetoric that unsettles us, confuses us, incites us to rage, incites us to lecture, incites us to action or prayer. Try our Best to Ignore intentionally inFLAMatory sentences Written like THIS!!! Try to curb our eyes from rolling so far back in our head that it’s impossible for us to even try to see another’s perspective. 

Rather, much can be gained from attempting to garner intent. How is this person feeling? What is it they feel they’ve not be able to communicate? What’s behind the anger?

We have been given voices, consciences, and tongues, and we should learn to understand when to hold them and when to use them. Ask questions, listen. Ask follow-up questions.

It’s as if God is saying to us, as he did to the Babylonians “Get out of your comfortable corners, go learn the language of others! Stop listening to the loud headlines of a singular media source, try on new voices, new perspectives.” The work of translation is long, but it will become easier.

We will learn the foreign languages of each colony, so that we will no longer be confounded. So that we may be “peacemakers [who] lead in the art of arbitration,” as Russell M. Nelson instructs.

____________

That ye may not be deceived seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given; For verily I say unto you, they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, and him that seeketh so to do; that all may be benefited that seek or that ask of me. - D&C  46:8-9

Everyone in my family is an English major. This is hyperbole (some are lawyers, some farmers, some stay-at-home-parents), but a hearty percentage of my kin are men and women of letters.  My mother majored in English and my father deals in the nuances of legalese. My grandmother published at least 3 books in her lifetime and my grandfather was a beloved university English Professor. My Aunt was the Dean of the English Department at a different university. I developed a taste for the wild playfulness of language at a young age, and to no one's surprise decided to study Communications and English.

I remember talking with this same Aunt about a collection of poetry I was attempting to complete for my MFA application. She sagely intuited the gift of tongues must run in our bloodline. 

This confused me, as I’d only conceived of this spiritual gift as one of learning foreign languages or being able to speak in babbling monologues when moved upon by the Spirit. She additionally suggested writing might in itself be a gift of tongues, the ability to express thought through the written word—to persuade, encourage, assuage, teach. That this was a gift to be cultivated and to express gratitude for. This insight gave new meaning to my writing and career, and even in some ways felt like the first stirrings of a divine calling.

This gift of tongues is not strictly for writers or readers. God’s exhortation is for all of His children to seek spiritual gifts.

I truly believe God is anxious for peace. It is written throughout His whole Word. He is pleading with us to speak in tongues, even dialects of own our native language that we haven’t before explored or understood. To be civil in an uncivil war. 

Personally, I feel He is calling me to be a better communicator through the Spirit. To no longer idolize the man-made towers of rhetoric and philosophy to the detriment of peace. He keeps pushing me to be an instrument of digital diplomacy in a time when I’d rather be a destroying angel. 

As Russell M. Nelson put it in a remarkable 2002 address on peacemaking, “Peace can prevail only when that natural inclination to fight is superseded by self-determination to live on a loftier level.”  

Whereas in the past I longed to be God’s instrument through writing, I would’ve chosen to be a trumpet, or at least something in the brass section. A drummer on the front lines, not a lulling viola or a deep-throated cello. God has different plans for my voice, and I am coming to recognize, and submit to that. He doesn’t need a soloist, he needs me in the choir, strong and steady. He needs me humble and teachable, ready to learn a new language.

Nelson was quite prescient when he said, “Resolution of present political problems will require much patience and negotiation.” 

As so often we see though the small peacemaking acts of mothers, like the one on that airplane, patience is key. 

Likewise, Nelson’s call for peace and understanding was just as clear as God’s command to his ancient people: “Descendants of Abraham—entrusted with great promises of infinite influence—are in a pivotal position to emerge as peacemakers. Chosen by the Almighty, they can direct their powerful potential toward peace.”

We will get there. We just need to descend from the towers of our own construction, and get to work on the ground.

Not with the intent of finally finding that one lingua franca that will end all contention, but to see glory in diversity, to seek after gifts of speaking and interpretation of tongues. There is a richness to be found in other languages, a slightly new interpretation of revelation. This gift of tongues is not an exclusive gift, or it need not be. It is a spiritual gift that can be purely sought, and generously given to those who seek it.

Bruce R. McConkie said of spiritual gifts, “Their receipt is always predicated upon obedience to law, but because they are freely available to all the obedient, they are called gifts. They are signs and miracles reserved for the faithful and for none else.”

“Their purpose,” he continues, “is to enlighten, encourage, and edify the faithful so that they will inherit peace in this life and be guided toward eternal life in the world to come.”

We might stumble when learning new languages, new approaches, new words, constructs, rhetoric. We will surely trip  over the tricky parts of the dialects like new missionaries in a foreign field. We might even at times sound more like toddlers, or ancient saints taken up by the Spirit in a bout of glossolalia—unintelligible to everyone including ourselves. For a time. But the Spirit will guide. Where the Spirit guides, peace follows.

January 2020