Chronos vs. Kairos

I share a thought by one of my "favourite reads" during theology study. It has to do with the uses two Greek words chronos ~ meaning time on the move, time as before and after, measured...  And kairos which is a term that cannot be measured, it refers to the present "now".

"For many people their life is not much more than a randomly organized series of incidents and actions, of which they are sort of a part. That means that for many people life is chronos... They have in their minds an ideal of what real life is supposed to be. But as soon as we start living, we get interrupted constantly. Something happens; we get sick, or somebody gets sick around us... We keep looking at those happenings as disturbing interruptions and keep going.

As long as we do that, our life is opaque. It is dark. We do not understand. The great conversion of our life, which makes all the difference to you and to me, is when life is no longer chronos but becomes kairos ~ the opportunity to change our heart and mind.

When I no longer see the interruptions as disturbing but as the great chance, as the moment in which God is moulding and giving shape to my life. I have to start listening very carefully. Facts of any kind should not be avoided as disturbing interruptions, but they slowly should be understood as a continuing challenge to change my heart and mind, as the moulding hands of God who is trying to tell me something."

* Cardinal John Henry Newman