Speaking in Tongues

Sunday we celebrated Pentecost and in his homily the visiting priest talked a bit about speaking in tongues. He mentioned his mother who has Alzheimer's and carries on conversations with fellow patients at their care facility. Family members cannot understand these conversations but the patients seem to communicate perfectly well with one another, speaking and responding with appropriate emotions. Father said this was an example of speaking in tongues where the person hearing the message hears something that is not exactly being said.

Last week I made a quick trip to visit my Dad in the nursing home. I took him White Castle for lunch and we ate together in the family TV room/lounge. After lunch we went to Dad's room to watch the Cardinals game on his TV. Dad's roommate is a 95- year-old retired NASA engineer. Jerry has a seizure disorder which leaves him unable to speak clearly or in coherent sentences. When we first got to the room, Jerry spoke about four sentences to me and I only picked out about three words. He pushed his wheelchair into the bathroom and later to his bed where he lay down for his normal afternoon nap. Dad and I talked a bit while we watched the game and then Dad dozed in his wheelchair. I sat and thought about these two men, both so bright and once full of things to say. I wondered at our lives which we fill so full of activity we barely take time to visit the sick and elderly. I wondered at my impatience at having driven three hours to sit and watch my Dad sleep. I wondered what it must be like for Dad and Jerry who spend hour upon hour in quiet thought and sleepy afternoons. I thought of Wendell Berry's book "The Memory of Old Jack" which is told from the perspective of an elderly man much like Dad and Jerry. In the book, Uncle Jack Beechum interacts with his family and other boarding house residents, but through it all in his mind he relives his life in great detail. I wondered if Dad and Jerry do the same and I guessed they do.

Dad stirred a bit and we talked some more. He told familiar stories about growing up on his grandparents' farm in the Ozarks. He told me again the story of his grandfather's death while Dad was in Germany fighting the war. Jerry got up and wheeled himself back into the bathroom. When he came out, he wheeled up close to Dad's bed where I was sitting. He began to talk and amazingly, I understood what he was saying. He was still speaking with great difficulty and in very broken sentences but somehow I understood him. He said something like, "I heard you and your Dad talking and I agree with you. When I was young and working for the government, I was busy, busy, busy all the time. I told people what to do and they did it. I made a lot of money but I don't have any left now. One day I stopped working and I just....stopped. Why do we work so hard and then just stop?" The amazing, freaky thing is that Jerry was not responding to the conversation Dad and I were having. Jerry was responding to the thoughts I was having while he and Dad napped. It was a "speaking in tongues" kind of moment.

I'd like to say I was holy enough to fully appreciate the moment but I must admit I was mostly freaked out about it. I said a little prayer that my brother Alan would arrive and rescue me from this ethereal,awkward moment. At that instant, Alan walked in the door and the moment ended. I felt relieved yet disappointed.

When the priest told about his mother and her fellow Alzheimer patients, I immediately remembered my conversation with Jerry. Why, oh why, did I not fully enjoy the moment? I've always related to St. Peter who sank in the water the instant he realized he was walking on it. Oh that I would learn to completely surrender to those rare mystical moments.