Quantity and quality of time

Apr 1, 2010, 12.00am IST
MARGUERITE THEOPHIL.


In English we have only one word for time, but the ancient Greeks used two distinct words for this concept: ‘chronos’ and ‘kairos’. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, time as before and after, the latter signifies a time in-between, or a moment of undetermined period of time in which something special happens.

We understand chronos as quantitative; a deliberate march from one thing to the next. Time in this sense is dimensional, measurable; it can be ‘‘accounted for’’. Kairos, less driven – though it may be purposeful in its own way – is significant rather than dimensional, and so it is qualitative. In chronos-time you might ask: ‘‘What time is it?’’ but in kairos-time you ask: ‘‘What is time for?’’


Chronos, the time of clock and calendar, is associated with words like early, late, on time, right away. So it is no surprise that Chronos was portrayed as a minor god, gaunt and ravenous, wild-eyed with hunger.


While measurement is one of the distinguishing characteristics of chronos, a key reason that kairos-time cannot be measured is because it is always a ‘now’. How can one measure ‘now’, or count the ‘nows’ in a lifetime or even a day? Kairos is time as a gift, time we often do not recognise while we are experiencing it, but only afterwards.

Kairos was therefore portrayed as the god of the fleeting moment. Such a precious moment must be grasped when it presents itself – and so the representation of this ‘god’ had a tuft of hair on the forehead for one to do just this, otherwise the moment is gone and cannot be grasped, and this is shown graphically by the back of head being bald!

In the imagery of archery, kairos refers to an imaginary narrow aperture through which the archer’s arrow must pass. In the art of weaving it relates to the ‘critical time’, when the weaver must draw the yarn through a gap that momentarily opens in the warp. So one might understand kairos to refer to a brief instant when an opening appears which must be availed of.

In certain religious circles, kairos is considered “God’s time”, involving a period of challenge, of disruption, where old rules, methods, traditions, habits, ways of thinking and doing business do not seem to work any more. In such cases, a chronos attitude would immediately suggest we ‘do more’ or ‘work harder’. A kairos approach, on the other hand, requires from us an attuning to mystery, to resonance, to inspiration; it involves a period of reflection, of surrender or letting go.


It is not that we need to choose one over the other, but that we need to become aware of and address the imbalance in our lives, where these days, we are more and more driven to favour Chronos. Purely chronos-time activities usually leave us exhausted, and kairos-time pursuits can bring in happiness and peace.

Madeline L’Engle, who wrote that childhood favorite A Wrinkle In Time, tells us that the saint in contemplation, lost to self in the mind of God is in kairos, as is the artist at work or the child at play, “totally thrown outside herself in the game ... ” In kairos we become what we are called to be as human beings – co-creating with God, touching on the wonder of creation.

While Chronos admittedly offers the promise of satisfaction after accomplishment, and we do need that in our lives, Kairos fulfils us when we do what we love, what is meaningful – and we need that even more.

weave@vsnl.net