Time

Time: something we all have, some a little, some more; time is with us every moment.  Sometimes time seems to drag by slowly, like when we are in hospital waiting to heal, other times it zips by in the blink of an eye.  And everyone agrees that the older you get the faster time goes by.

Last week, we were all reminded to change our clocks; and our clocks told us we had an extra hour last Sunday morning, an extra hour to do things we wanted to do right at that moment.  Today, as we remember the veterans who served in wars both long ago and recent, and as we join elderly Second World War vets, we see how the time that has marched by since the war has not dimmed their memories of the time spent in the horror of war.  Ask one of these vets about the time that has gone by and you might get a response like “it seems like only yesterday”.  Moments like these make us keenly aware of time.

Have you watched your child walk across the stage to get a graduation diploma? Don’t you play those few seconds in slow motion in your mind? Have you bitten into a peach and slowly sucked the juice and savoured every moment?  Have you watched in awe as the sun rises?  What moments time can give us!

In English we use “time” in different ways.  Time can be measured in hours and minutes, as in “what time is it?”  Or time can be a memory, as in “that was a great time we had yesterday”.

In New Testament Greek, time is a little more clearly expressed with two different terms.  We have “chronos” which we might call “clock time”, which measures time which passes by and answers the question “how much time?” And we have “kairos” which could literally be “fullness of time”, or “that special moment in time that you savour”.

It is interesting how often we savour a moment of time and call it “beautiful”.  The Greeks did too; their word for “beautiful” shares its root with the word for “hour”.  To be beautiful is to be “in one’s hour”.  A rose in bloom - fragile, fragrant, fleeting - is “in its hour”.  Someone young trying to look older, or someone old trying to look young; these are both offensive to this Greek idea of beauty.  To be truly beautiful, be “in your hour”.

We have all heard, "time is what you make of it". We all have to deal with “chromos” time as it marches by.  And sometimes we think that we can help it pass by pleasantly by entertaining ourselves with things or toys.  But it still passes by and we feel that something is missing.

If we choose, on the other hand, to see what we can do for others, to bring beauty to someone else’s life, we discover moments of beauty, moments of fullness of time.  We can also receive these moments of fullness of time in meditation and in contemplation, which is also known as contemplative prayer.  And in times of true worship, we can experience moments of fullness of time.

“Chronos” time happens to you; it happens to all of us.  Seeking to have entertainment happen to us leaves us empty as the time marches by.  “Kairos” time happens in you.  The fullness of time grows from within, and expresses the moment of beauty in blessing others.

Think about it.  Whatever time you have is yours.  You can let it happen to you; or you can seek to have it grow in fullness of time within you.  It’s up to you.