essence of being, an articulation that is accomplished through the vehicle
of language.
What, then, is language that humans would fi nd their dwelling there,
indeed the essence of their being? Asking the question in a Heideggerian
fashion, we might rather ask what is it that language does, what does it
reveal that allows humans to fi nd their being in it? Simply, language speaks.
In speaking, language takes hold of itself, it stands apart, as it were, from
human use. We enter into a stay within language that is concerned with
what language itself speaks and not with what we speak with language. 13
And there is a manner in which we might permit language to speak wherein
as a form of refl ection on language we discover a dwelling in language.
We uncover the essence in ourselves that is tied up in our relation to and
becoming from language rather than in our domination of it. In order to
discover our own being, we must fi rst understand that language is outside
of ourselves, that we are subject to the call of language and that through
the answering of that call we realize the essence of our being.
There is, however, at work in language more than a unilateral realiza-
tion of the essence of being. One might say that speaking is also an act of
naming; we name the things and beings with which we reside in proximity
as a way of knowing them. In naming, there is an implied nearness, the
thing is there, we see it, and we name it. Naming acts also as a calling, and
in calling, there is implied distance. We call near to us what is at a distance,
so that in naming we both bring near and yet realize the farness of the
thing. There is a distancing, a remoteness that is enacted by our naming
that is similar to the limits created in our self-revealing. 14 In other words,
naming desires to call forth the essence of things—truth—but never seems
to accomplish its task because it simultaneously occludes with signs. The
answer then is to allow language to be, to relinquish our attempts at con-
trolling language and to allow the word itself to “make the thing appear
as the thing it is.” 15 Truth, the essence of being, is thus revealed when we
respond to the call of language and allow it to speak and deny ourselves of
the will to possess it.
O N GLOSSOLALIA AND THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT
Divided tongues, as of fi re, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on
each of them. All of them were fi lled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:3–4 (NRSV)
TONGUES AND THE REVELATION OF BEING: READING PENTECOSTAL... 55
