Falling Through the Crack in Time
Do you ever have the experience that the most important moment of your life is happening right now - and you're missing it?
The ancient Greeks had two words for time. While chronos time is the logical, linear time of our clocks ticking, kairos time is where we fall through the crack in time into a deeper moment of our soul’s longing. In allowing ourselves to fall through the crack, we open the gateway to a deeper journey of unlocking a truer desire already waiting for our lives.
But how to stay? Your watch says it’s 3.15. You’ve promised to collect the kids, get to the Supermarket, keep up with your workflow and squeeze in a bit of TV. Your mind is filled with thoughts of how little time you have. You impact the world with the demeanour of a stressed and rushed person.
What would open if you did things a little differently?
My Dad has Alzheimer’s. Every Friday we go to the park together. Now, my father’s shape has always been to ‘get on with the thing’, so when we walk, his orientation is to ‘get to the finish.’ Sitting in silence for example, signals to him that there must be ‘something to do’. He would keep walking and exhaust himself rather than choose to stop and take a rest; only when exhausted would he earn that break.
“Look up” I say. “What a tree. Isn’t it tall?” We’re standing beneath a beech tree that must be over 100 years old. It’s profoundly beautiful in the dusky light of late afternoon.
I consciously get present, feel width across my chest and space in my heart. Dad feels my presence with the tree. He looks up. “Wow” he says. His eyes light up. With the curiosity of a child he sees the tree as if for the first time.
There is a moment of magic, of spirit living, of a crack in time right there, and we fall through it.
My Dad in childlike curiosity of a felt sense of aliveness, and me, in the courage to meet these precious moments with deeper connection and reverence.
Every moment we step, the crack in time waits for us.
Slow down. Take 10 minutes. Breathe and notice your body. Stop on your walk to observe what is alive around you. Go without the groceries for today. Give a little more time to someone. Something is always waiting to happen just beneath the surface.
