Read Online Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson - Free Book Online

most important gift. But tongues is a beginner’s gift, and Alpha is a beginner’s course in Christianity, so it would be wonderful if you tried.” We steel ourselves. The door opens. It is Alice. She has missed Nicky’s comforting preamble and has arrived just in time for the main event.
    “If you ask for the Holy Spirit, you’re not going to get something terrible,” says Nicky. “Shall we give it a try? Shall we ask Him?”
    “Mmm,” say the crowd contentedly.
    Nicky softly begins: “Please stand up and close your eyes. If there’s anyone who would like to experience the Holy Spirit, maybe you’re not sure, I’d like you to say a very simple prayer in your heart . . . a very simple prayer . . . It’s OK. . . . I now turn from everything that is wrong . . . now hold out your hands . . . hold them out in front of you . . . if you’d like to . . . some of you might be experiencing a weight on your hands . . . you might be thinking nothing’s happening . . . but you might be feeling a peace . . . a deep peace . . . that, too, is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. . . . Jesus is telling you He loves you . . . He died for you.”
    This is when the first sob comes: At the front, someone begins to cry. “I sense that some of you would like to receive the gift of tongues now.”
    I wobble on my feet. Later, James tells me that wobbling is a possible sign of the Holy Spirit. I open my eyes for a moment and look at the group. Tony is grinning, his eyes bulging, like a schoolboy in a pompous assembly. Alice, who is entirely unprepared, is looking perplexed and uncomfortable. I close my eyes. I imagine those who have been in this spell before me—Jonathan Aitken, for instance, and the business executives and celebrities.
    “Start to praise God in any language but the language you speak. . . . Don’t worry about your neighbor. Your neighbor will be worried enough about himself. . . .”
    And then the tongues begin. I thought it would be cacophonous, but it turns out to be haunting, tuneful, like some experimental opera.
    I think some people are cheating—I hear French:
“C’est oui. C’est oui”
—but mostly it is quite beautiful. I open my eyes again and look around. Mark, Nicky’s press officer, is speaking in tongues. So are James and Julia. All these people I have known all these weeks are speaking in tongues. Tony has refrained from tongues, but he is no longer grinning, either. He is crying. Alice looks ready to explode with anger. She barges out of the chapel. “Be a little bolder now. . . .” Nicky carries on. “Just continue to receive this wonderful opportunity. . . .”
    James walks over to me: “Is it working for you?” he asks.
    “Well, it might have,” I reply, “but the truth is, I’m a journalist, so I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.”
    “Would you like me to pray for you?” he asks.
    “OK,” I say.
    James rests his hand on my shoulder. “O Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with . . .”
    It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I’m sorry, but I’m a journalist. (This is no excuse: The picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. “Oh, thank You, Jesus, for Jon’s wonderfully inquiring journalistic mind. . . . Please help Jon’s career . . . no, not his career . . . his wonderful journalism . . . and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ. . . .”
    I tell James I’m sorry and follow Alice outside, where half a dozen furious agnostics have gathered on the grass. “Why didn’t anyone tell me I’d signed up for a brainwashing cult?” says one. “I felt like I was in a pack of hyenas. I wanted someone to come up and ask me if I was