Saturday, January 16, 2016

Choose Karios Over Chronos


One of the gods of Greek mythology is Kairos, god of opportunity. An article in the Kyeongyang magazine by  a layman, working with families, in the Seoul Pastoral Office explains why the statue of god has a head of hair in the front and bald at the back.

Mop of hair at the front allows one to grasp opportunity, but once it passes you, the bald head is all you have and a missed opportunity; the chance has passed. "So then, as often as we have the  chance, we should do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to our family in the faith" (Gal. 6:10).

In sports, we know how important it is to take advantage of the opportunities that one is given. Likewise, in life we don't know when we will hear the whistle, so it is necessary to seize every opportunity,  there is no guarantee of a tomorrow. We know speed of time on earth continues to increase as we get older. Chronos is the Greek word for lineal time: quantity of time. Kairos is the quality of time, a subjective understanding of time.

He uses the example of the last  4 minutes of a soccer game where the score is 1:0. For the winning team, the 4 minutes are extremely long while the losing team too short. Kairos time is meaningful and quality time, and you are the master and in control.God's clock has no hands because it is Kairos and full of love and he wants us to live with this kind of time. 

Sad, it is, to spend so much time without meaning, a great tragedy. When surveys ask what do people want: money is the answer, but one thing money can't buy is time. Consequently, the greatest gift we can give another is our time. 

Tragic, how busy we are, and can't find time to be with family. There is so much to share, and we miss the opportunity to spend quality time with those  we have bonds of charity. We miss so much without this contact with family and members of our different communities, and yet we know what Jesus asks of us:  "Now I give you a new commandment love on another. As I have loved you so you must love one another" (John 13:34).