Its all Greek to me....

"The Greek word "chronos" means "time" in a quantitative sense, chronological time, time that you can divide into minutes and years, time as duration. It is the sense that we mean when we say,"What time is it?" or "How much time do I have?" But in Greek there is also the word "kairos" which means "time" in a qualitative sense - not the kind that a clock measures but time that cannot be measured at all, time that is characterized by what happens in it. "Kairos" time is the kind that you mean when you say that "the time is ripe" to do something, "It's time to tell the truth", a truth-telling kind of time. Or "I had a good time" - the time had something about it that made me glad. The ancient poet who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes was using time in a "karios" sense when he wrote of a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to keep silence and a time to speak."
I have, in the past weeks, enjoyed the latter of the 2 times, because to me, they were spent with people I love and don't seem to see often enough. In the past 2 weeks, I have also been reminded of how both kinds of "time" are important. The "time" we have to spend alive on this earth making a difference in our lives as well as in the lives of others. That this sort of "chronos" time CAN be very important given that none of us knows what time our end OR our beginning will come or how. Which, in essence, makes the "kairos" time even MORE important. How we spend either one tells us a lot about oursleves as indivduals and as a race. Time is too fast, too slow,not enough or too much. But it DOES take the quantative to create the qualative. So go out....make chronos to take kairos and live life for today. Carpe Diem!!! (whoops, I think that is Latin!) A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I heard these words wafting through my sons door and down the hallway.....little did I know then the true reality of them...."Time is tickin away, tick tick tickin away.." (sung in some kind of "rappish" mode!)