My pleasure. I feel the same way about my Caroline., although there was nothing particularly unique about my last name or the date we met. Nonetheless, it was a very good day! You and I are two extremely lucky guys.
My thoughts weren't as long as I thought, so here they are:
I first heard of the kronos/kairos duality in literature studies at the University of Virginia around 1974. In my mind, the former is physical and objective, the latter anthropogenic and subjective. Kronos ticks by relentlessly (as Newton would describe centuries later), mindless of human events. Kairos is tied to human events. Some moments, some days contain more kairological time than others. In 1974, our professor used the then-recent November 22, 1963 as a day saturated through with kairos--a day that weighed more than other days on those of us who remembered that date.
I believe he told us this distinction when we studied Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” The first fourth of the book is seen through the eyes of Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled boy whose consciousness extends mostly over a dozen or so intense moments in his life. In the book, he ping-pongs across these moments, which, for him, exist simultaneously and outside of chronological time. Some have interpreted him as a Christ figure--an innocent Lamb of God who perceives the evils around him and suffers for the moral shortcomings of his troubled family.
For me, reading the book itself was heavy in kairos. Though I read it (several times) half a century ago, it remains more vivid in my memory than almost anything else I've read since.
Thank you so much for this! It helps me to understand this more clearly. I never really knew about the distinction until I listened to Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rolin on the podcast Symbolic World, talking about Advent. They're both Orthodox, and were discussing the ancient way of seeing things in which those events from the past are still happening with us, that we can participate in them. This is particularly rich in the concept of the sacraments and Holy days. I fear that protestants like myself, who grew up as post-enlightenment Christians, have been impoverished and miss a great power and depth in seeing things through the duality of kronos and kairos. I have lately been reading Laurus, by Eugene Vodolazkin. If you haven't read it, it concerns a medieval Russian holy man and healer, on his journey of healing and sanctification, and in it the ideas of time and even place are quite fluid, apparently as a medieval man would likely see them. I always learn something from you! I really appreciate it.
There once was a doctor named Leap,
Whose patients would flock to, like sheep.
And the love of this man
For a woman named Jan
Was a torrent so wide and so deep.
Wonderful Jon! thank you so much! I'll be sharing this with Jan.
My pleasure. I feel the same way about my Caroline., although there was nothing particularly unique about my last name or the date we met. Nonetheless, it was a very good day! You and I are two extremely lucky guys.
John -great poem. Here is my attempt:
I have a good friend, a physician named Leap.
Whose wisdom and joy lifts us like a mountain so steep.
His shared stories of life become the memories we keep.
His love of his wife and family fill us with the joys that we weep.
Each evening I seek peace by reading from Ed to help me sleep.
By doing so, my wife reports, I slumber without making a peep.
Just saw this and thought you might enjoy it: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/youre-having-baby-due-leap-120034689.html
Thank you friend!
My thoughts weren't as long as I thought, so here they are:
I first heard of the kronos/kairos duality in literature studies at the University of Virginia around 1974. In my mind, the former is physical and objective, the latter anthropogenic and subjective. Kronos ticks by relentlessly (as Newton would describe centuries later), mindless of human events. Kairos is tied to human events. Some moments, some days contain more kairological time than others. In 1974, our professor used the then-recent November 22, 1963 as a day saturated through with kairos--a day that weighed more than other days on those of us who remembered that date.
I believe he told us this distinction when we studied Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” The first fourth of the book is seen through the eyes of Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled boy whose consciousness extends mostly over a dozen or so intense moments in his life. In the book, he ping-pongs across these moments, which, for him, exist simultaneously and outside of chronological time. Some have interpreted him as a Christ figure--an innocent Lamb of God who perceives the evils around him and suffers for the moral shortcomings of his troubled family.
For me, reading the book itself was heavy in kairos. Though I read it (several times) half a century ago, it remains more vivid in my memory than almost anything else I've read since.
Thank you so much for this! It helps me to understand this more clearly. I never really knew about the distinction until I listened to Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rolin on the podcast Symbolic World, talking about Advent. They're both Orthodox, and were discussing the ancient way of seeing things in which those events from the past are still happening with us, that we can participate in them. This is particularly rich in the concept of the sacraments and Holy days. I fear that protestants like myself, who grew up as post-enlightenment Christians, have been impoverished and miss a great power and depth in seeing things through the duality of kronos and kairos. I have lately been reading Laurus, by Eugene Vodolazkin. If you haven't read it, it concerns a medieval Russian holy man and healer, on his journey of healing and sanctification, and in it the ideas of time and even place are quite fluid, apparently as a medieval man would likely see them. I always learn something from you! I really appreciate it.