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Speaking In Tongues With Interpretation "Battles"


J0nny Ling0
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I remember one time at Camp Gunnison, a certain red haired, smallish, but man of of serious conviction with perfectly pressed "dungarees", red checkered snap shirt, and Dingo cowboy boots, challenged we Way Corps to be bolder with our manifestations during the meetings. He told us that even if five or six people respond to the request; "Would someone please stand, speak in tongues and interpret", that everyone should "fight it out" and keep on manifesting until you "emerged victorious" as the "last man/woman standing" and ended up being the one who spoke for God during that particular round of manifestations. For after all, we should want to be the one who speaks for God in those situations, and, "I want to see more boldness here!"

And so, one time, when we were up in the "Hayloft" of the Barn, at a Corps night, I decided that I would in fact "fight it out to the bitter end" if necessary, and do as Rev. TJ suggested. And so, at the appointed time, Rev TJ says after some prayer; "Would somone please stand, speak intongues and interpret!" And immediately about ten people jumped to their feet, and we all commenced to boldly speak in tongues. And as this continued, a few people (the girls first), dropped out and sat down. But I and the other Young Men Of God continued to speak in tongues without a hint of "dropping out of the competition". It was getting pretty uncomfortable for me, but, I was determined to do as the "General commanded", for to me, his suggestion was tantamount to a command.

And so, we continued on. By this time there were only about four of us left, as the others had "thrown in the towel" (the cowards!) and sunk sheepishly into their chairs with tightly squeezed eyes. And then, as we kept on keepin on, two more guys sat down, and it was up to me, and my good friend J*m Sch*tm*y*r, to see who would emerge as God's primary spokesman. And yes! I knew that it would be me! For I had already vanquished nine contestants! How could I lose after such victory? I couldn't get into trouble for it, for, It was suggested by none other than The Red Haired Stranger himself! So, I kept on. And, by now, instead of only "peeking" through slits of my eyelids like I had been to see who was attempting to out do me, with a withering stare I looked at Jim just daring him to keep on going while I spoke with even more volume in order to make him falter and drop by the wayside. And as I stared at him, I also saw that every eye in the room was looking from me to Jim to TJ and back, as we battled as Speaker In Tongues Men, and, TJ was radiant!

Oh yes! I was in my glory! I knew then that there was no stopping me, and I knew that I would be the victor. Yes! The Victor! And as I gave the eagle eye to my good friend Jim, abruptly, he stopped, and he mouthed the word "s h i t." And promptly he sat down. Aha! I thought, I did it! I have vanquished my brother in a "speaking in tongues and interpretation battle!" And I won! And TJ will finally approve of me now! But then, as I kept on speaking in tongues, it dawned on me that I now had to interpret, and that I'd better come up with a rather loooonnnggg interpretation. And so, I stopped as TJ beamed at me.

I closed my eyes and asked God to help me, for suddenly I felt fairly ridiculous, and like an idiot standing there in front of all of my Corps Bros and Sistahs who had watched the spectacle and realized that I was the biggest moron of the bunch. I am poisitive that those who had sat down were secretly counting their blessings. And then came forth the interpretation: "And know that I am the Lord thy God....." And I froze. I drew a blank as I squeezed my eyes tightly. But then, with renewed vigor, I burst through my fear and gave forth a long and fairly coherant interpretation. And when I was done, I sat down, and closed the book. No wait, that was something Jesus did. I wasn't reading a book or scroll. But I did sit down with tightly shut eyes as I head TJ say; "Now that's what I want to see! Boldness to speak for our Hevenny Father!"

And after the last prayer that Corps night, he came over slapped me on the back, and told me of what a great job I did. I was beaming, no doubt thinking that God must have made a special place in heaven for me as I broke my hand patting myself on my back! Ahh the glory! And as I stood at the back door of the Hayloft, shaking the hands of those who had been present, a man came to me with tears in his eyes and said; If you want to know about manifestation battles, I'll tell you more than...."...no wait...That part didn't happen...

ANYWAY, Unfortunately, that was before I showed up late for breakfast and the "You were fishing, weren't you Jonny?" incident caused me to lose all credibility with him because of my "pursuit of the wily pices...."

And so, did anyone else have any "speaking in tongues battles"?

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Johnny

I was same corps as you. But I never got patted on the back for anything. I mostly got harrassed, for being too young, and people wanting to kick me out cause I was too young and a "teeny bopper." and I didn't "take the program seriously enough."

And I hadn't done my time or anything, I just showed up in the corps totally undeserving of working in the backroom and doing head table and all that. I didn't deserve it, I guess. I hadn't worked my way up, ya know?

I took the place of people who had been around way longer than me, and felt more deserving than me, of what I did. I had no idea at the time.....

I had people tell me the only reason I was in the corps was cause of VP and me being one of "his girls." I didn't know what it meant at the time, but later I found out.

Corps coordinators were suspicious of me, so they never gave me credit for anything or treated me like a normal human. I'm glad your experience was different.

smooches, bro

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That story is too funny, JL.

I don't know if this guy was the one who started the whole "SOMEBODY sit and interperet" thing but it happened a lot. I was never in a long drawn out battle but when someone called on "somebody" there were usually several people that would start and usually people would bow out graciously and let who was usually the loudest person go ahead.

I always thought this approach was pretty lame. I mean, wasn't God supposed to be directing the leaders to call on one individual or another. So if the leader wasn't getting a "go" from God for Bobby or Shela to sit and interp. then maybe he didn't want it to happen at that point. Or maybe the leader was just being lazy. And how was that "decent and in order"- a bunch of people fighting it out to see who was that "most spiritual" or something. And it seemed offly rude to me for those individuals who just kept on speaking without pause over everyone else. It was uncomfortable at times. It just seemed like a stupid way to run a meeting if you ask me.

I was also *%^#*ed at those same people talking over me in conversations after fellowship, like they just had to get what they had to say out there because it was so important that they had to cut me off. One night I had enough, I shouted and cussed a bit at a few people who kept doing it. They got the point.

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Yes, great sto-rey, Jonny. I can see it yet ...

I don't recall any tongue battles of that nature in OUR perfect corps, but I do remember myself and another exchanging greetings and spiritual salutations by saying, "Oh shanta malacasita, lo shanta, which being interpreted means How the ph uck are you, you sonofabitch??" while walking around campus. Once in a while someone else would hear our blessed greeting and their eyeballs would open just a bit wider, wondering who the hell we were, corps, talking like this.

Yes, we brought new light unto our generation of corps ... Just trying not to become too legalized, ya know...

Edited by tomtuttle1
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:jump: L O L

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaahahahahahahhhhh

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Johnny , that was so funny yet so sad. I never heard of a battle like this, it is so NOT of God.

But how you shared the story is hilarious.

What EGO MANIACS the Way wanted and wants to produce.

Its all about "ME" don't you know?

In the 90's I got reproved for using the word "I" too much, like the "seed boy" in JOB.

What they say and what they instill are polar opposites!

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EX10,

Please, don't get me wrong! This wasn't really a positive experience. It was a very stupid experience, a story written with the thought in mind of pointing out out how ridiculous it was, and how I, as a dumb 22 year old wanted that "pat on the back" at any cost. It was a time when I had lost my true sense of self worth by NOT believing that God's approval of me was all I needed. And because of this, in that particular situation where the CC had instructed us to do just what literally occurred, I took full advantage of it not just to "make myself a better leader for God's people", but primarily to get the pat on the back, which of course is the opposite of the true motive God seeks from us. "For if I have not Charity, I become as a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol"-Or, a loud mouthed fool in a room full of people...

But, for some reason, I really liked that particular Rev. Corps Coordinator. He really was the antithesis of my character, really. I loved the outdoors, I loved to wear my ragged cut off Levi's 501 blues, I was young and single, he was married and very "domesticated" and starchy, whereas I always have loved the "wild and wooly" lifestyle like being at Gunnison and building the log buildings (also why I am in Alaska I guess), but, for some reason, even though we were very different, I really liked him. I think what it was was that I liked his teachings on Christianity in America, and sometimes he was really funny. He cracked me up with his mannerisms, his "dungarees" and Western attire, which just didn't quite seem to "cut it". And sometimes he'd get on a roll in a "self deprecating manner" that was very hilarious. But unfortunately I sought his approval instead of God's, and an example of it was this incident. And the thing that seems so ironic to me was that not long after that, he kicked me out of Gunnison and sent me back to Emporia, because I was "fishing too much". I wrote a pretty funny story about that and how he caught me and G*nny A*t*n fishing when we should have been at breakfast. Yes, I led her astray. It's written in the archives here maybe in that it wasn't too long ago. Maybe Tom Tuttle can find it if you want to read it EX10, for I have no doubt you'd get a kick out of it...

Anyway, maybe I didn't present the sarcasm in this one quite well enough, but my intention was to illustrate not only the tragedy of folks seeking approval other than God's, but also the silliness of a "speaking in tongues with interpretation battle" which was asked of us in that particular training situation.

And, I guess I just like to write Stow-rees... :)

Edited by Jonny Lingo
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Well Jonny, you've filled in some blanks for me.

When I was in Colorado in the 80's building a house, I took a weekend and went up to visit Gunnison.

I saw the TIP battles still in progress at that time and wondered WTF?

And now, believing as I do that "tongues" and the related prophesy and all, is simply gibberish, it's even curiouser. WayWorld was certainly adept at bringing out the peculiar in us all...

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Gee! My involvement of TWI was that the twig leader always called out by name people who were to SIT and interpret or do prophecy(based on the leader's revelation manifestations), never chaotic willy-nilly. :yawn1: Or was my case the unusual(did I imagine it)?

Edited by Thomas Loy Bumgarner
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ah, I get it now, Johnny.

I absolutely hated my time in Gunnison. Couldn't stand TJ or his other half. I felt like I was living in a prison camp, and woulda got kicked out of the corps for being a "teeny bopper" if a certain staff member hadn't come to my defense.

You and Gin caught fishing, huh? Now that would be funny....

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Well ya know, to be honest, we were in the Way Corps training program at that time, and the Corps Coordinators' instructions for us to do it that way was to help us to get bolder at doing it because there had been a time just before that when he would ask for someone to manifest, and there was a big hesitation, and finally someone would reluctantly stand and do so. It seemed to me that on the field and not in the training program, that it was done both ways: "Requesting a particular individual by name, or, just requesting that someone so inspired please do so".

And so, you have to remember that some of the goofy stuff we did while in the Corps training program was for training. For instance, the "teaching to a tree" thing, or the wearing of a three piece suit at 6:00 a.m. and doing a ten minute teaching to the whole Corps before breakfast. I mean, many of things were goofy, but they weren't necessarily things to be carried out "onto the field", other than in the situation I presented in this thread being misguidedly told to us so that we could develop more boldness. I mean, have you ever been in a meeting when the request was made for "Anyone so inspired please prophesy", and then no one did it? Kind of embarrassing, until someone finally stood up, and stumbled through it, which increased the embarrassment factor.

And so, as misguided as it was, it was presented to us so as to avoid those situations when actually on the field "doing the real thing".

Oh but man oh man I laugh at that one! I just told my wife of that incident this morning at breakfast after I wrote it, and she laughed a good one!!

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Funny story, Jonny. I like your stories, but my comment is to Tom T. Maybe this shows just how unspiritual I am, but this made my night:

"Oh shanta malacasita, lo shanta, which being interpreted means How the ph uck are you, you sonofabitch??"

I LOVED this kind of stuff...I know it sounds really weird, but when people did stuff like this it "blessed" me more than someone quoting verses to me. I didn't know you Jonny, and TomT I guess I didn't know you, but you guys with your earnest hearts and craziness are what I miss about TWI.

Hugs from me to you guys.

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Mr. Lingo - I love your posts - you have away with words (malaprop intended)!

Although I was never in the WC, I remember some funky excellor sessions while taking the Intermediate Class. Some of the practices would be like... SIT w/ interpretation ten times in a row... or SIT out loud using a different letter in the alphabet each time...

Turning the manifestations into exercises took the supernatural-ness (if that's a word...) out of the message. They became mechanical - things - tools, if you will. They weren't as special then - they didn't seem inspired anymore. It was like spiritual calestheics - boring, but served a purpose...

Someone posted about the "Someone,-please-speak-in-tongues-and-interpret" phrase that would often be used. I hated those, although being a loud, outspoken person myself, usually did it because I didn't want to get yelled at later when NO ONE jumped up to do it... That happened a couple of times - it was painful.

Come to think of it, they sure perfected the art of taking something simple and spiritual and making it painful, and mechanical... Isn't that religion, tho?

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And my thanks as well, Tonto-tomounta. Certainly what a few of us did in residence at times caused a bit of confusion to some, laughter to a small few, and fireworks from several "leaders". But, that was the risk you took, trying to bless others in a humerous way. I also would give hickeys to a few of the sistren from time to time, just sos they knew they were attractive and desirous. And I was married, which was why I could get away with some of the shinanigans.

I also miss some of the great times we had, made great by the REAL and tender-hearted believers.

If you want to sample some of the humor amongst us, read the 9th corps thread. Start at the big-inning...

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Tuttle-one, I did read the entire 9th thread. I started reading it one day and got hooked and had to back up and read the entire thing...this was during the year my father was dying. It provided the laughs and distraction I needed. I still check it every day... :)

Sorry for the derail, Jonny. :wave:

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You've been forgetting PLAF lessons, haven't you Jonny??

Ortho from the greek word orthos, meaning straight or right

Tomounta from the word temnos, meaning to cut, or a cutting

Thereby rendering "a straight or right cut-ting".

... a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING the word of troof...

Remembering this WHAT class??? Remembering this FIRST!!! That NO prophecy, none of that which is for-told or forth-told, is of any PRIVATE (IDIOS, what english word would you say we get from this), of one's own, interpretation. For HOLY men of God SPAKE as they were moved (pushed around) by THE pneuma, THE hagion...

You wonder what you should say to your people at a time like this...

Edited by tomtuttle1
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jonny L.

funny funny story,

i used to tear it up with the manifistations. i was always told i had a "longsuit".

I used to actually be upset when others were called on and i wasn't.

i never showed it. but inside i thought, wtf is going on, i have a longsuit...

a jackass was i.

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Yes Mr. Tuttle. It appears as if maybe I had done a little too much fishing, doesn't it? But thank you for having the love to reprove me like that and help me to "get back on the ball", which of course, as we know, is the safest place to be...

And WaferNot, yes, I do now remember the word correctly now, and thanks there too Tom. And, in actuality, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that info on orthotomounta, and find it very helpfull in the way that the word is used in the Bible in that verse.

And Nandon, concerning "bold manifesters": There was a guy in the 12th Corps, a great big black guy whose name I can't remember (he had a sweet Mexican American wife) and when he prophesied or SIT w/ I, man, he blew the roof off! He had a deep baritone voice, and when he said; "Know that I am the Lord Thy God.....!", why the first time I heard him I jumped a country mile right there in my seat!!!

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  • 1 year later...

God first

Beloved Jonny Lingo and others

God loves you my dear friend

your friend's interpretation "dang" was right for trying to fight over tongues like a war yes "what dang" that sounds to be

tongues is to be a blessing

I bet if most was interpretatied that night it go something like this

"What going on but a miss used of my gift why does it has to be one greater than another why not all of us be rewarded with a loving interpretation but this is just seeing who dang the most"

than I see your interpretation from God was to try to bring things back to a Godly order by saying "And know that I am the Lord thy God....." not who ever wins the foolish game

thanks for sharing this story

with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy

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