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Most clocks flicker these days. I still have a round one ticking on the wall in my office, but usually I rely on my phone or the computer clock or the microwave clock.
If you dig much into the faith and work movement, you’ll hear people say we should live an integrated life rather than a balanced life. Balance, these folks argue, implies that we trade time in one area for time in another. That kind of thinking forces us to choose between false alternatives. We serve God on Sunday morning. We serve our family in the evenings. We serve our boss during the work day. This is not a healthy way to view the world.
I long for an integrated life. I long for the kairos view of time, God, and work that David Rupert talks about on TheHighCalling.org this week. David summarizes several instances of kairos time in the New Testament. He says,
Kairos moments then—and now—allow us to get a glimpse of the “other side.” We peek around the corner at eternity. We actually glimpse how God works.
Then, this morning I had a link from Mark D. Roberts in my email. It seems that after visiting Laity Lodge recently, author Jeanie Miley wrote,
Chronos time, that way of understanding time with which we are most familiar, measures our lives by clocks and calendars. Kairos time transcends our linear understanding of time and is all about the fullness of time when things come together in just the right way to give opportunity, meaning and depth to our lives. … kairos time indicates God’s perspective in seeing all things at the same time.
Certainly, Laity Lodge is a place of kairos and retreat. But I can’t live at Laity Lodge. Or if I did, it would become governed by chronos just like every other place I might live. Like Thoreau, I would settle into routine quickly, wearing a path between my habits like he wore a path between his small cabin and Walden pond.
That’s the problem with balance vs. integration. As much as I would like to pretend I don’t choose between work and family, sometimes I must do precisely that. My brain is not a multifunction processor. I cannot write about work and play checkers with my son at the same time. If I try, I will do both poorly.
No. My brain has limits, and it reaches those limits very quickly. However I want to philosophize about time, it is a scarce commodity in my life and so I must treat it as such. I must intentionally carve out time for the people who matter to me. This means tonight I will go fishing with my son instead of going to my writing group. It means this Friday I will take a vacation day to spend time with my wife at Enchanted Rock. It means I will watch less tv if I want to read more books like Latro in the Mist by Gene Wolf.
The integrated life is still possible with God. Through reflection and something like “praying without ceasing,” I am trying to practice the presence of God. The challenges of the clock do not limit him after all. While I must often choose between tv and reading, writing and family, work and vacation, God is with me in all of those activities.
When I offer my time to God as a living sacrifice, he will teach me what he taught Walt Whitman:
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life!
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
Joy! joy! all over joy!
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{ 7 comments }
This post — and David Rupert’s — challenged me. My life looks pretty compartmentalized, when I get to thinking about it.
I said it at HCB, and I’ll say it here, too, but I get the sense that if kairos moments (as defined through Rupert’s link) happen at:
1 – the right time
2 – a limited period of time
… well then, I might be missing the miracle of God at work in my everyday.
Great posts, guys.
Thank you Marcus – I really needed this on this particular morning.
Jennifer, I think we’re all missing the miracle of God in our daily lives. I don’t mean to say that God is constantly meddling and micromanaging the details around me. I think he could, but I think he gives us more freedom than we would like to admit.
What I mean is that life itself is a miracle. The universe itself is a miracle.As Whitman said, “To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,/ Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
Susan, I needed it this morning too. I write this stuff precisely because I struggle with it so much myself. I’m glad it was also helpful to you.
A needed word, Marcus, thank you… getting and staying ‘in the zone’ is tough stuff. When work gets to be too much sometimes, i break away to pray… some might think it odd, but things are always easier to manage when i get back.
Nice reflective post, Marcus. I hadn’t read David’s post but I’ll certainly check it out now. Yes, we must choose between priorities but that’s the problem with “balance” – do we maintain balance by tallying how much time we spend on family vs job?
Our calling is more than just a calling as a worker. We’re also called to be a husband, father, citizen, etc… Our calling is multi-faceted.
So many times we look at the talents God has given us as “Market” commodities, ones used to create material wealth and sustenance, and completely cruise by some incredible opportunities. We work to profit a company (and sacrifice our family, time and relationships to do so) yet so easily pass by the chance to profit God.
For many of us, writing is sometimes relagated to the, “Oh well, I’m compelled to write, so what the heck,” category and lose the passion God bestows upon us to return something of immense value to Him.
What a revelation. I just realized that my general sense of being rubbed the wrong way comes from being a kairos thinker in a chronos world. I can’t wait to read David Rupert’s piece. I feel a sea change rushing into my life. This probably makes no sense, but I’m crying for awe and joy right now. At the risk of using too many methaphors in one paragraph, I just have to say that suddenly being broken and reshaped like old clay is feeling extraordinarily good.
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