speaking in tongues

Last night I was at the community education building, formerly the middle school, where the monthly meeting of our town's educational foundation was taking place. Since our normal room was occupied, I went searching for a custodian with keys to let us into another room. Along the way, I found one room was set up with speakers mounted at head level and some sort of soothing keyboard music was playing while through the door's window I saw a man gesticulating and from his mouth came a string of syllables that seemed to be 'glossolalia' (speaking in tongues). About the same time a middle-aged woman let herself out from the room's other door in search of some water from the drinking fountain. In a quiet voice to herself she repeated, "thank you, Lord" and "hallelujah."

Needless to say, this seemed incongruous to my mission to find the custodian, although I did vaguely remember that Wednesdays there was a gathering of Christians without a church building of their own.

The experience made me reflect: for non-believers, or those who once believed but no longer practice any habits of the heart, perhaps the elements of church-attendance trigger a similar alien or unfamiliarity when they hear or see Christians expressing themselves in public places. The question arises: how best can one situate one's consciousness and mindfulness between the secular and the sacred world; is there an in-between space, or must one zig and zag between the one and the other?