While it may not always show in my writing, I have always cared about the way words fit together. As a result, I have resisted any thought I’ve ever had to enter the world of blogging.
Blogging, after all, is not exactly known as an arena for literary precision. And yet, as the church’s task of living together as a community of faith becomes more difficult with each passing day, I have come to believe that this form of communication might enable us to say and hear some things that aren’t always spoken in the crush of congregational life. And so, trusting that you will read with grace-filled eyes, I hereby open Kairos Corner.
My blog’s title reveals its aim.
The Greek language has two words for time: The first is chronos, which is a word that describes the ordinary passing of time, from which we get our word chronology. The second word for time in the Greek language is kairos. This is a time that is teeming with possibility. It is used to describe times that are alive to what God is up to around us, where the curtain pulls back and you catch a glimpse of God’s dreams for this world that God loves. The hope, you see, is to train our hearts to comprehend when chronos time becomes a kairos moment–a time pregnant with opportunity.
One Sunday, in the midst of an unusually complicated serving of the Lord’s Supper, I noticed such a moment.
Brandon, then a second grader who was not yet partaking of the bread and cup, had the practice of coming to me to receive a blessing. And so I did for him what I have done countless times to my own children or others from the congregation. I traced the sign of the cross on his forehead and reminded him that he belongs to God. And I have blessed him in the name of Christ. Though incredibly significant on one level, it was also just chronos time playing itself out. That’s just one of the things that pastors do in the church.
But on that Sunday, the time shifted.
It dawned as me as I reached for Brandon’s forehead that he was doing the same to me. This child of God traced the cross on my head and reminded me that I belonged to God too.
And in the twinkling of an eye, that ordinary time broke open and became kairos time and I was overwhelmed yet again by God’s power to bestow life through the blessing of a child.
Those are the things that I will be writing about here–those amazing moments when ordinary time becomes kairos time. I invite you to share your own discoveries of such times in your life, even as I give thanks for our God of abundant blessings. Of course, I suspect I will also throw in a lot of “ordinary” reflections along the way, since there are always more things to say than opportunities to say them.
In grateful anticipation,
John P. Leggett