Excerpts from my book, Spirit, Time, and The Future- On Time

Excerpts from my book, Spirit, Time and The Future

On the definition of spiritual experiences and on the definition for the contrasting concept of time:

Chronos and Kairos

Next, it is important to ask the questions of discernment. What distinguishes the spiritual from the usual or the ordinary? (If this distention is useful for you and from some perspectives it is not) From my studies and as an attempt to summarize what I have found to be useful so far, a spiritual experience has to contain one or more of these feelings or experiences:

First, the experience must take you outside of yourself, past or beyond your ordinary awareness, beyond your usual or comfortable ego boundaries. (A definition of ecstasy?)

It often involves us in taking a risk in the face of uncertainty, and has an emotional quality that asks us to be vulnerable, open, and willing.

Second, for something to be spiritual, it has to create or provide a greater sense of bonding or belonging— a gracious connection, a quality of relationship that differs from others that you have previously experienced.

Third, for something to be considered spiritual, it needs to provide you with feelings of unity or immersion — To become one with Nature, the Universe, God— and that can be something blissful or something that is deeply disconcerting.

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These events and experiences are what lead you beyond the ordinary or the fearfully ego bound to a new level of perception; It is clearly a change that is meaningful, and often becomes compelling, transcendent, and lasting in its effects.

Concerning time, there are varieties of spiritual experience can be ever so brief, even a once- in- a- lifetime event! When and where, or under what circumstances they occur, no one can actually predict. While it is true that you can work diligently and conscientiously to make yourself more open, willing or receptive through various spiritual exercises, demanding disciplines, or other such esoteric practices- even trying through drugs and deprivations- any or all of those efforts do not or will not guarantee that such ” experiences” will occur.

Spiritual in-breakings are often synchronistic; they can appear to be whimsical and gracious, gut-wrenching and revelatory. What they cannot be is neatly outlined or conveniently scheduled! Just because you feel that it is not the right time for you, doesn’t mean it is not the true or the right

time for some experience of the Spirit to manifest in your life! Because the Spirit has her own timetable, She follows her own calendar of the heart, and more often than not, will arrive unbidden or unannounced! Sometimes, these experiences come to us through a dream or as some sort of ESP experience.

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They can arrive during an intense time of caring, or of tenderness, such as when you find or lose someone special or someone who has been close to you: a cherished relative, a transformative lover, a dear friend, a beloved pet. With such a spiritual experience can come feelings of deep connection; it can be found when you look at your child, take in a sunset, or when you hear a particular strain of music that moves you deeply. In the process of this open hearted beholding, we can arrive at all that can be beautiful, contemplative, peaceful, and serene.

Some of these inspirational times and experiences have been historically preserved or have been translated into shared rituals for a culture or a community. They are often best recalled in and through common worship, which would include such mind- and heart-altering practices as singing, dancing, chanting, praying, energy healing, and so on. The expression of the Spirit is something that any open religious or authentic spiritual community needs to allow, design for, and respectfully recall as a vital part of their times together.

How do we view our lives, and how are our concepts of God connected to or separate from our culturally derived sense of time? Theologians and church historians have long held to the notion that the church and its people, from its ancient beginnings to its current manifestations, live in two worlds of time: Chronos and Kairos.

Chronos is simply instrumental time, or time that can be measured in a scientific way; when and how sunlight and darkness are measured, and then how calendars can be designed to approximately divide time up into days, months, years, centuries, and millennia.

Overall, it could be said that the progress of our Middle Eastern religions and their ability to employ calendars eventually moved our social concept of time from a simple agrarian calendar of lunar months, and from a sunrise to sunset world, into a level of cultural complexity undreamed of in Prophetic or even Apostolic times!

The effects of time on the sociology of religion have become dramatic and clearly have had a profound cultural effect— where a mechanical timepiece, hourglass, or the cathedral bells, etc., can determine the length of meaningful interactions or determine the daily flow of events. Time became a widespread psycho-social measure of personal value and social priorities. As cultural and relational beings, we have learned to look at the time, and then equate the expenditure of clock time with its personal or professional importance to us. (this consideration spans everything from the ” therapeutic hour” to the classroom, from the timing of a business meeting, to the length of a first date…)

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The supplemental contrast is found in the theological concept of Kairos. Kairos is the Greek term that designates time in the light of God’ fullness— God’ in-breaking appearances, where our baseline realities can be altered or actually permanently changed. Kairos can refer to our personal, intuitive, and transformative sense of time that comes to us without measure, as being essentially and soulfully timeless. However, it is also recognized widely that each person’ soul calendar varies greatly— from this very next moment to the realization that many of us might need to spend a lifetime in preparation for one fleeting experience. In the mystical traditions, one of the contemplative aims is to cultivate a quality or capacity for receptivity that would be necessary to experience a readiness or a ripeness of soul.

The kairotic time is when the Holy or the divine appears to us. This appearing or divine manifestation has the capacity to radically change our sensory perceptions. It can alter our ability to comprehend life and the ways we previously understood our life’ direction and purpose.

Socially, this inbreaking gracious event or numinous experience can affect one’ sense of orientation, one’ goals in life, and can alter one’ sense of place in family, and the larger socio- economic culture. Kairotic time creates a transformational shift in consciousness in a meaningful and significant way.

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This experience can redirect the path of our individual lives while also shifting our sense of identity and individuality. There are no simple biological or easily reducible mechanisms that are alive or at work here. Studies in altered states of reality, consciousness, and mystical visions, etc., agree that these experiences are notoriously hard to measure, difficult to quantify, nor are they readily calculated simply by observing their inner effects on the person.

Simply put, Chronos is clock time or the more secular and scientific measurement of time necessary for the advancement of social activity. Chronos is also necessary for the timing of our religious practices in our human culture. As an essentially timeless contrast, Kairos functions differently, elusively. Kairos occurs whenever the Holy appears, whenever grace happens.

The marked results of these kairotic moments can and often do require us to twist or turn away from expected behavior, accustomed thinking, and our usual approach to our feelings. Their impact on us can ask us to confront whatever our personal and social expectations will allow. It is a moment when time and existence itself becomes caught up in spirit-filled realities, energies, and outcomes.

Kairos is the redemptive, restorative, transformative time that accompanies the dynamic actions of the Holy Spirit. Many of us, looking back, can measure the meaning and purpose of our lives from those transformative events. They waited patiently for our readiness, our receptivity, and then acted as latent blessings that were graciously hidden within all the possibilities of our human experience.

Though these experiences can be fleeting, if they are genuine, they are almost always become life-changing moments. Kairos happens when we are given our inspirational keys that unlock our doors of perception and realization. Our karotic experiences are pathways to healing, individuation, relationship building, and justice making. 3