Chronos & Kairos

Greenwich, standard, eastern, mountain, central & pacific!

It doesn't matter what kind of time it is.

All that matters is that we never seem to have enough of it!

Up until this time.

Time and time again.

Old faithful time.

For the time being.

Since the dawn of time.

Times up!

When I think about life, I try not to think about time. 

I like to think more in terms of seasons, you know, 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."  Ecclesiastes 3:1 

Yes but not at the same time.

Have any of you tried to raise happy, emotionally well-adjusted children,

revel in a fabulous marriage, and work a sixty-hour week? 

When we can't do it all at the same time, then we are meant to do only some of it.

  The trick is, finding out what the "some" is supposed to be!

Since the dawn of time, we've tried to understand her nature.

But time is a mystery, an extravagant gift meant to be experienced, certainly not controlled.

Time's mystery is hard for most of us to appreciate because we have so little of it!

This might be the season for you to wipe a little runny nose. 

Doesn't necessarily mean that the season of running your own business won't ever come around. 

This might be the season of moving and living out of a suitcase. 

Doesn't mean that the season of restoring a beautiful old farmhouse will never occur. 

Making deals over lunch doesn't mean you won't be making school lunches someday.

We must have patience.  Patience is the art of waiting.  Patience takes time to master!

There is an art to using time to your advantage, being at the right place at the right time, knowing when to pick your moments and when to bite your tongue!

Even though we've all been given 24 hours each day, it sure doesn't seem to go very far! 

Isn't it dreadful to run out of time!

Patience is something I learned all about once I became a mom. 

I began to discover the patterns and cycles that cradle us all and ensure that if it has happened once, it will happen again! 

Having that kind of patience led to having perseverance.

Perseverance in life is being steadfast, keeping the ship on course.

Persistence is another thing, it's grittier than perseverance.  Persistence is all-out sweat! 

Persistence is knocking loudly and so often on the door of your dreams that eventually you'll get what you want!

I've been told I have a lot of that.

  In order to discover some serenity during the busiest days of our lives,

we need to also discover Time's twin nature which the ancient Greeks called

chronos and kairos.

Chronos is clocks, deadlines & agendas.  Chronos is time at her worst. 

Chronos keeps track.  Chronos is a delusion of grandeur.

Chronos is running a marathon in heels!

Kairos is transcendence, infinity & joy.

  Kairos is time at her best.  Kairos let's go!

Kairos is a Schubert waltz in nineteenth-century Vienna with your soul mate.

Most of us exist in chronos & long for kairos!

Chronos requires speed so it won't be wasted.

Kairos requires space so that it can be savored.

We do in chronos.

In kairos, we're allowed to be.

We think we've never known kairos, but we have.

When lost in music's rapture,

     when working in the garden,

when exulting in a passion,

or watching over a sleeping child.

By going about whatever we are doing as if it were the only thing worth doing at the moment.

By making time.  By taking time.

It only takes a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment.

I like to think that if we are determined to gather life's honey, to stick our hand into the hive over and over again, to be stung so many times that it doesn't even hurt, to persevere and persist, till those who know and love us no longer call us normal, then we will be called authentic.  I like that!

Once upon a time.  

All in good time.