Yesterday,
I commented to Lorna that it seemed we have been at the cottage for a lot
longer than the three weeks we have been here. She agreed with me which
is nice because that doesn’t always happen. In some ways, our time here
has been timeless. It always does to some extent but it seems more so
this year perhaps because most of this time has been in quarantine and focussed
around getting tested for COVID and getting our second shot which happened last
week. There has been a sense that one day flows into the next without too
much to differentiate one day from the other. In any case, I want to be
clear that it has been a very pleasant time as it always is here at our Island
home.
That
experience of timeless time does raise a question for me about time and our
focus on time in our culture today. Our culture is very much ruled by
time and time is to a greater or lesser extent our master. We are used to
measuring our days by what we have scheduled which, of course, is governed by
time to a great extent. This is less so when we are retired – our
schedules are more flexible but there are still the surprizing number of activities
which we participate in – numerous Zoom events which are scheduled to begin at
a particular time – meeting and lectures and workshops and classes. Zoom
seems to have become pervasive in our lives along with the occasional Skype
meeting.
Another aspect
of time is its flexible nature. I’m sure that you are aware of how time
can seem to slow down or speed up. Sometimes a few minutes seem an
eternity and sometimes an hour or more can seem to go by in the flash of an
eye. I have said before and will say it again that the longest two
minutes in my life has been the two minutes of silence in a Remembrance Day
Service. This, of course, has nothing to do with it not being significant
– just the opposite. Every second of that silence holds deep significance.
Exploring
the issue of timelessness further, when we move from time to timelessness, we
are entering the area of God’s time versus our time. In timelessness we
can speak of eternity. Eternity does not mean a long time. Eternity
is beyond time – it is a state in which time does not exist. This is
something which is difficult for most of us to grasp. We are like fish
swimming in the water of linear time. Our lives are measured by time
which passes – things begin and end. We wake up in the morning and check
what time it is if we are fortunate enough not to be woken up by an alarm
clock. We begin an activity at a particular time and end it after the
passage of time. Time flows on and there seems to be no stopping
it. As the Joni Mitchell song says, “it won't be long now, till you drag your feet to slow the circles down.”
When we
move into timelessness and eternity we are moving from our time to God’s
time. I have been listening to recordings of Northrop Frye’s lectures on
the Bible and Literature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Swyk_ZRy8.
He notes that the creation story in Genesis did not happen in linear time, it
happens in God's time. In effect it is a timeless event which is happening
all the time.
As Frye
notes, the Bible speaks of time in two different ways; time is either Kairos or
Chronos. Simply put, Chronos is measurable time which has a beginning and
an end. Kairos, on the other hand, means an opportune time, a moment or a season such as harvest
time. Paul uses Kairos in the passage from Ephesians 5:15-16, “Be careful
then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of
the time, because the days are evil.”
If you have
ever been caught in a moment when time seemed to stop or disappear, you have
moved from Chronos to Kairos. We need to be aware of when we want things
to happen on our schedule, in Chronos and become aware that they sometimes
happen in Kairos. It is a reminder that as much as we like to believe it,
we don’t often set the agenda. That can be frustrating but it can also be
liberating.
May you be blessed on your journey to experience it In Kairos and well as Chronos.
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