Chronos and Kairos Time

Several years ago we invited a new couple attending our Sunday School class to join us for dinner. They arrived promptly on the appointed day. We enjoyed (I think) our dinner together; then retired to the living room to continue the conversation. The clock on the wall read 7:30. Several times the husband glanced up at it. Finally realizing the clock was not running, he checked his watch, jumped from the sofa, grabbed his wife’s hand, and exited with a mumbled excuse that they had another appointment. Were we just an appointment to them? Were they really with us? Their obvious obsession with chronos time did not allow them the possibility of our dinner being a kairos moment.

Kairos and chronos, two Greek words commonly translated “time” in the New Testament have different meanings. Chronos is the source of our English words chronology, chronological like calendar time and clock time.

Kairos refers to time appointed by God; sometimes translated, “the day of the Lord”. Brennan Manning defines it as “… when His love flashes into my soul and when I am overtaken by Mystery, it is kairos—the decisive inbreak of God in this saving moment of my personal history”. (Abba’s Child, p.59)

This past summer the white erase board that chronicles our month remained blank. The tan of my left arm showed no evidence of a wristwatch. A new freedom. I knew I was programmed by chronos time; I desired to experience kairos time.

When tied to the calendar and the clock, I’m so aware of what is next, I don’t live in and enjoy the moment. The word revel leaves me clueless. I crave more inbreaks of God.

Grocery shopping last week, I heard Dana call hello. We stopped and visited for several minutes. We parted ways; within two minutes Debby and I made eye-contact. I hadn’t seen her since May. We too stopped and chatted. I was living on kairos time; it felt right. With my grocery receipt tucked in my purse, I headed for the parking lot with a smile on my face.

Our sabbatical has ended; I am wearing my wristwatch again; our whiteboard calendar now reminds me of commitments. But the freedom continues. Kairos time and chronos time can work together. They are both necessary and good.

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom”.

Psalm 90:12

Arranged Friendships

Hiring a match-maker or arranging for the marriage of your children (still common in some Asian and African countries) is not practiced in the US—but the concept lives all around in our culture. I call it arranged friendships.

Kappa Delta Chi, the sorority I affiliated with during college, provided an identity, a sense of belonging, fun, formals—Bills and my first big date was the KDX formal—and  friends—arranged friendships. We were loyal to each other. Forty years later I am thankful to still be friends with some of these women.

Arranged friendships are common on sports teams. Not only do the team members play together on the fields, often those are the people they choose to socialize when the game is over.

In the business culture, arranged friendships are forged around departments or projects. One of my colleagues calls these, functional friends.

Arranged friendships are forged in volunteer organizations or in a Sunday school class or a neighborhood. Arranged friendships abound in our culture.

There is security and identity—good things—in these arranged friendships. But what happens to those friendships—those relationships—when college days are over; sports no longer fit your lifestyle, the business department changes, the project comes to an end, or the Sunday school class dissolves, the neighbor moves away? Often the friendship terminates.

I wonder, was friend ever the right identifier?

For someone for whom friendship is a high value, the fall of an arranged friendship hurts. Ouch, I am there. Actually I don’t believe in arranged friendships, I believe in friendship.

How do arranged friendships morph into friendships? I’m learning that …

1. The friendship needs to be greater than the arrangement. Friends create opportunities to be together apart from whatever it was that brought them together.
2. If a friendship is to survive and thrive, I need to initiate. Loving hospitality works in my favor.
3. C.S. Lewis says, “Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, “What, you too? I thought I was the only one”.

“A friend loves at all times, …”

Proverbs 17:17

The Waldo Canyon Fire ~ Five Months Later

The calendar pages turn; the shock is history; decisions multiply; rebuilding starts; grieving continues.

The ground is soaked with rain. She struggles to walk on the dirt road. The mud clinging to her shoes gluing them to the ground at times, and other times turning them into skate boards tumbling her to the ground. Her hands now encased in mud as well. Will she ever arrive? She struggles on.

Another walks the same road. She too experiences the sucking, sloshing, muddy reality. Her progress is slow, very slow; she too falters and falls. She looks around for help. She sees hands—dry hands—at the side of the road under the protection of the tall pine trees. She reaches; they reach; they connect.

A third travels that muddy pathway. The oozing of the ground is a nuisance. It saddens her to think of the sunny days just a week ago and how all has changed in the short time in the reality of the storm—the reality of now. Life is very different but must be lived. She plunges ahead.

Three dear friends traverse the same road, three different responses to the storm they endure.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so we should walk in them”.

Ephesians 2:10

Father, help me to honor how you created each of my friends. Please help me to not try to fit them into a box that I understand. Please allow me to love them well in ways they can receive. Amen.

You Went Through Hell

These words, “you went through hell”, conveyed our counselor’s, our Christian counselor’s immediate response to the telling of our engagement story.

His words stopped the telling; they shocked; I dissolved into tears—the beginning of the healing.

The twenty-eight year old story told many times to many friends never elicited that personal emotional response. The difference …

He didn’t mince words or truth.

He didn’t minimalize the trauma of those months.

He didn’t moralize with the response we had come to expect, God is sovereign.

Something changed that day with those four words; he earned our trust and, taught us a big lesson about connecting with others.

Life is hard. Minimalizing and moralizing experiences negates their impact.

Those months had been hard, really hard. When my friends accepted my invitation to be bridesmaids and backed out, it was embarrassing. My parents questioned the friends I chose. It put fertilizer on the lie I believed about myself, I’m not good enough. It fit the pattern of life I had come to expect—a sad commentary on me. God’s words to us faded in the words of people.

But I digress. Many of our friends currently live in their own hell. They call for my compassion, not my understanding. They need my ear, not my commentary. They need to know their story is important by itself, not compared to mine. They don’t need me to minimalize or moralize (thank you to Tullian Tchividjian for introducing me to theses verbs) their situation. Life is hard, really hard.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Proverbs 17:17

A Psalm for Ashlyn

A new GRANDchild on the way propels me to pray, what Scriptures should I trust God for with this little one?  Those prayers continue as I get to know them.

Last June during "Mana and Pop-pa Camp", 4 year old Ashlyn and I turned her bedroom into a Noah's Ark room. I was amazed by her creativity. She then memorized Genesis 6:8, "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord" and turned it into a song to the tune of "Skip to my Lou". A few days later I heard her say, "I want to be a song-writer when I grow up".

Later in the summer during my time with God, He led me to Psalm 100 and I knew that that was one of the Scriptures I wanted to pray for Ashlyn. She turned 5 this week; her gift was Psalm 100 for Ashlyn, matted and framed in little girl style. My paraphrase written in 5 year old language ...

Make a joyful noise to God with your songs,

O Precious Ashlyn.

Serve God with gladness.

Come into His presence with your singing, Precious Ashlyn.

Know, Ashlyn, that the Lord, He is God.

        It is He who made you.  You are His!

You, Ashlyn, are His; the precious sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with your thank you prayers, Ashlyn.

        and His courts with your songs of praise.

Give thanks to Him, Ashlyn; bless His name.

For God is good;

        His love for you, Ashlyn, is always and forever

        and His faithfulness to all generations.

A Mana paraphrase

 October 17, 2012

"He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord".  Psalm 40:3

Wait ~ Trust ~ Hope

I promised in my August 16 post to share some thoughts from this scripture:

“Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.

Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.

Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”

Psalm 33:20-22

The context: Bill introduced me to these scriptures one cold wintery evening in the lounge of my dormitory. He also brought a special gift for me that night; a cross necklace with a tiny diamond in the middle. That special time is forever etched in my mind.

This gift from God, a message to Bill, passed on to me, brought goose-bumps and tears of joy—someday we would marry. Seven times the plural pronouns proclaimed this passage was for us—for Bill and me. The pronouns instructed us by the verbs they connected with: wait, trust, hope.

Wait—for God’s timing.

Trust—in God who knew the future.

Hope—not in circumstances, but in God.

We waited 3 ½ long years. Our hope did not wavier because our trust rested in God and His words to us that winter night. Trust enabled the waiting and hoping.

Waiting equates to hard work. Will the job offer ever come? Did I pass the test? Will the surgery be successful? Waiting often involves anxiety and questions.

Hoping evokes a more positive picture. I hope to get the job. I hope I got an A. I hope the surgery was successful. In each of the previous sentences, “hope” could be replaced by “expect”. Hoping focuses on encouragement; there is a bit of wonder, but it usually predisposes an expectation of good.

The pendulum of trust in God (not circumstances) reaches back to the hard waiting and swings us to the expectant hoping. This valuable lesson often repeats itself in new ways. Scripture memory awakens this truth just when I need it again.

“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in you.”

Psalm 39:7

Be Loved

The beloved child of The Father, my primary identity; it rolls off my tongue so easily.

Have I ever stopped to ponder its truth?

I hear God, say it slowly my child. Wonder about it. Dissect it. Beeeeee-loved.

I sit; I soak; I ask—how does a child know love? My grands love the attention I shower on them; they love the care I give them; they love the invitations to be with me.

Kind of like me! Beeeee-loved. I think it’s …

·        to give myself permission to be who I am with all my needs..

·        to ask God to shower me with His attention, care, and invitation.

·        to realize it’s ok to say no.

·        to linger in the freedom of childlikeness.

·        to take time to experience its reality.

“And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God”.

Ephesians 3:17-19, The Message