The Fullness of Time
In just a few days we’ll do it again. We’ll say goodbye to one year, with its unique catalogue of the memorable and regrettable, and begin the process of learning how to say, write and think in a new, numerical reference: 2022. How we proceed on January 1 will reveal more about us than we may realize. Some of us will venture boldly into our next allotment of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months. Some will do so reluctantly, preoccupied by our uncertainties or fears. Whatever our preconceptions and forebodings, all of us will soon dip our toes into that ever flowing stream of time that is a new year.
While it may not always seem to be the case, the fact remains that each of us will have the same amount of time in 2022. How much will that be?
· 31,536,000 seconds
· 525,600 minutes
· 8,760 hours
· 365 days
· 52 weeks
· 12 months
Put this into eternal perspective, and the coming year for all of us will represent:
· 1.4 % of the time lived by a typical Baby Boomer
· .2 % of the time since European disembarked at Jamestown
· .02 % of the time since the great ancient civilizations flourished
· .00033 % of the time since homo sapiens first appeared
· .00000002 % of the time since earth began orbiting the sun
· .000000007246 % of the time since the Big Bang.
Numbers like these are so astronomically large and so infinitesimally small as to render them unfathomable to me. That’s why I prefer Carl Sagan’s reduction of the 13.8 billion years of cosmic time into a one-year calendar, each day representing 4 million years. By his reckoning, the human race entered the picture at 10:30 p.m. on December 31, long after prehistoric monsters enjoyed their near-week under the sun. Our entire recorded history, roughly six millennia, began at 11:59 p.m. And next year? It will run its full course of 365 ¼ days at 11:59.590001 p.m. on Sagan’s calendar—give or take a few nano-seconds. Mind boggling!
Looking at time like this makes you feel large and important, doesn’t it? More likely it is a sobering reminder that the times of our lives are incredibly short, equivalent to a very quick eye-blink when viewed against the backdrop of eternity. That is, if we appreciate time only in chronological measure. And most of us do, most of the time. Our jobs, our children’s lives, our social calendars, our favorite athletic pursuits and the “time is money” mindset that so drives almost every aspect of how we live—all are on the clock. Perhaps that is how we are wired and conditioned. The Greeks had a word for it: chronos, and it aptly describes how we see ourselves as creatures marked by time in all of its temporal and fleeting expressions.
Defined as we are by chronos, we find ourselves caught somewhere between the past of our individual and collective memories and the future of our wishful or dreadful anticipations. Our chronos experience compels us to make good use of time so understood, maximizing each moment lest it be wasted or lost. Since all of us have the same amount of chronos, what we do with it entirely rests with the choices we make and the priorities we hold dear.
There is another way to look at time, however, that most of us flirt with—from time to time. The Greeks had a word for that, too: kairos, the fullness, essence or quality of time. Kairos is not about time’s passing, but rather its’ meaning to those seeking some deeper purpose in any particular moment. A sunset may last but a few minutes in chronos, but endure for a lifetime in kairos.; a treasured melody passes quickly in chronos, but resonates in our hearts whenever we choose and at whatever tempo we replay it in kairos recollection. Touching the spirit as it does, kairos is the beating heart of the mystical traditions of the world’s lasting religions. But it is not their sole possession, for any person can experience kairos if so attuned.
Whenever we become so absorbed with our work or in our relationships that we lose all track of time, we have entered the realm where kairos abides. And in those precious moments when time stands still, obliterating all other preoccupations by bathing us in beauty, truth, or love, it is kairos that engulfs us. Kairos is beyond prediction or programming, and its hold on us is one of depth rather than duration. Kairos renders all of our other moments mundane and forgettable. In contrast, when chronos is our fixation, time can creep along at a wearisome pace—as when we watch a clock or boiling pot or when our young ones spend five minutes in time-out. Boredom is the close companion of chronos, making us feel like our time has been wasted. It is never boring in kairos, nor can time so experienced ever be killed. It is chronos that renders Christmas little more than a cultural agreement to keep the 25th day of the 12th month of each year as a finish line to the seasonal race to buy, adorn, and overindulge, leaving most of us spent and exhausted. It is in kairos that Christmas is elevated to become that moment, beyond seasons and calendars, when meek souls still may receive in the Christ child the abiding assurance of Immanuel.
The year about to end will soon take its place in a long chronicle of historical numbers. But what was 2021 to each of us, and what did that time really mean? We all lived it, but did we find fulfillment in it? We experienced it, but did we savor it, or grow in knowledge, wisdom or strength during its days, weeks and months? Did we meet its tests and obstacles with courage and intelligence, or did they, as the old hymn puts it, “fly forgotten as a dream?”
Of two things we can all be certain: the year past is now beyond changing. That isn’t to say our memories won’t try to change it, color it, or selectively remember and forget parts of it each time we drift back into our mental catalog of the sounds, sights and feelings of 2021. And second, in less than a week we’ll put new numbers, new thoughts, new interpretations on however many chronos experiences may lie ahead. Whether we count them as good or bad, favorable or disastrous, meaningful or pointless will entirely depend on our ability to sense, and tune into, the kairos possibilities of each and every moment of our living in the coming year.
