Who’s Your God?

 Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), who was the Minister General of the Franciscan Order, defined God as a "circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." This is a definition of God that resonates with me.  This is, at least in part, because it is a paradox.  After all, how can a circle have a centre everywhere and have no circumference?  And yet, for me, this definition of God seems to sum up God better than any other definition I have encountered. 

This paradox gets at the problem of trying to define God.  How can we define the undefinable.  Any definition we have is, of necessity, incorrect because it limits God which is unlimited.  However, the paradox is that we have to define God to try and understand what we are talking about.  Of course, theologians, clergy and all kinds of people have been defining God ever since the cavemen (and women) gathered round their fires and looked at the night sky and made symbols on the walls of caves.

We can say that God is eternal but people will misunderstand that eternity is not a long time, it is outside of time as we know it.  Again, we can try and define eternity – one on-line source defines it this way, “a state to which time has no application; timelessness.”  However, it is beyond our understanding of time – at least Chronos time which is the time that we experience each day with the sun rising and setting and we move one day further from our birth and one day closer to our days on this earth running their course. In this, we are dealing with Kairos which an on-line source defines as, “the right time” from Ancient Greek, Kairos variously refers to an “opportune presentation” in rhetoric and a “spiritual opportunity” in Christian theology.

With all this I will put before you the question, what is the definition of the God you believe in – if you believe in God or a God.  If you don’t believe in God or a God, what is the God you don’t believe in?  In either case, are there aspects of God that possibly don’t fit into that definition?  Are you open to the possibility of encountering a God which doesn’t meet that definition?

In any case, I hope that whoever or whatever the God is that you encounter on your journey God will bless you as Jacob was blessed when he wrestled with the angel (God’s messenger).

 

 

My Time is Not God’s Time

I am at a point in life when I take six pills each day – some are by prescription and some are vitamin supplements.  Some time ago I decided to swallow – not one of the pills in this case – but my pride and admit that it would be easier to have one of those seven day containers for my pills as I didn’t always remember if I had taken my pills or not – perhaps there is a pill for that but it is not on my list of pills.  In any case I recharge the daily pill container on Friday’s – nothing significant about the day but it is just when I do it.  It used to be Thursdays but I forgot to take them one day a while ago so it became Friday proving even a good system is not foolproof. 

Well, I am telling you this because I am always amazed when Friday rolls around and it is time to recharge the pill container.  How could a week have gone by so quickly?   A long, long, time ago in a land fairly far away when I was a child, a week seemed interminable.  I remember saying to myself at one point, I hope the weekend would last forever so I wouldn’t have to go back to school–being the kind of child who seemed to be out of sync with school and never in the right place in my learning experience – but that is a story for another day.  In any case the week at school did seem to last forever. 

Time does seem to be very flexible and stretches out or shrink in my experience.  I was at the Long-term care yesterday to do an Anglican worship service for the residents.  Visitors have to have a COVID test which requires waiting for fifteen minutes to get the results.  Another visitor remarked that this period was always the longest fifteen minutes of her life.  I was going to mention that it didn’t seem as long as the two minutes of silence on Remembrance day which I used to have to count out when I presided at Remembrance Day Services.  This, of course, has nothing to do with it not being significant – just the opposite.  Every second of that silence holds deep significance. But I didn’t get the chance as the staff person gave us the all clear and I headed off to the gathering congregation.  Time does seem to be flying by these days but it couldn’t be that I am getting old - can it?

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.  Some time ago, I listened 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.  St. 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.           

What Time is it Anyway?

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.