The Franciscan wrote, “If you do
not want to go there, you’d better
stay away from the
Holy One.”

It’s a very dangerous place because
you have to die, die to all
the things you have
been taught to

live for. It will shake the foundations
as another theologian wrote.
He has a Pentecostal
friend (Yes, there

are a few left over from the 60’s and
70’s and 80’s.) who keeps moan-
ing because our highly rational
culture won’t accept

the validity of his experiences in
speaking in tongues. Well,
he thought, if you back
up all that gibberish

to most ears with just a word or two
of understood love and an
action or two of
experienced

love what difference would it make
if anyone judged the ecstatic
practice of the in-
explicable,

even frightening, encounter with
The Holy One? Didn’t
St. Paul ask some-
thing along

the same lines? If an earth-shaking
encounter doesn’t lead to
death to all the first half
of life’s goals

attained and now disdained, don’t
even think about how
nice it is to speak
in tongues

or have just the right liturgy and
music in a very rational
mainline congregation’s
worship service.