Kairos-Climate-Time: Now is the Time
Climate Change Olympian Fields of Action Series: Post #2
As we begin to explore who we are as a Movement and our relationship to the other three Catalytic Sources of Transformation — making us the Catalytic-4 — we need to know what time it is.
As I have already mentioned briefly in earlier posts, we are in kairos-climate-time. But what, exactly, does that mean?
In the ancient Greek language two words describe two different conceptualizations or types of time.
The first, chronos, from which we get our English word chronological, describes the ordinary passage of time. We can think of chronos as everyday, run-of-the-mill time; days, minutes, hours; tick-tok tick-tok; Spring, Summer, Fall Winter. Normal, uneventful time.
Kairotic time are the moments when life presents you with a life-altering decision that will never come again.
The second is kairos. Kairotic time are the moments when life presents you with a decision, such as accepting one’s deliverance. Expressions like “when the time is right,” or “strike while the iron is hot,” or “the time is now,” or “timing is everything,” or “seize the day” capture this sense of time. Kairos is when life opens up windows of opportunity or danger that may appear for seconds or hours or days or years, but will not stay open forever.
In the Olympic Games chronos and kairos come together. Every four years of chronos time there comes a multitude of kairos moments for the athletes, their personal and team coaches and other support staff, their countries, and their supporters, fans, and viewers.
Each Olympics, each event, will never come again. All the training and preparation have led up to this moment. An athlete may get a chance to compete in a future Olympics — or may not. But when they do, they will be four years older; their peak performance may be behind them.
For events that involve a set amount of time, like basketball or hockey or soccer or boxing, chronos creates kairos as time ticks by and the last seconds run off the clock. Never again will an athlete be able to score the winning basket or goal before time runs out in a particular game; never again will they face that kairos moment. In events where one races not only against one’s fellow athletes, but also against the clock, the starting gun or bell commences both chronos and kairos time. Tick-tok, tick-tok, and then crossing the finish line into history as an Olympic champion and even a world record holder.
When chronos creates kairos, you get one shot at victory. The time is now!
The climate crisis is chronos and kairos banging into each other as we are heading off a cliff. As the chronos-climate-clock ticks by and we fail to do what is required, the kairotic opportunities to change course dramatically begin to slip away, while the kairotic climate danger brings us ever closer to catastrophic tipping points — even as many of the vulnerable are swept under the waves before we get there, their own personal kairotic climate catastrophies having come and gone.
From now until we are out of harm’s way, every moment is a kairos-climate-moment, a moment to decide to do what’s right, a moment to act, a moment to make a difference; every tick of the clock brings us that much closer to danger — or victory as we make our future come faster and our world more beautiful.
As Climate Action Athletes we must train ourselves to see our kairos-climate-moments, and then to bring who we are and what we can do and who we know and all that we have to seize our chances to give it our all. The Climate Movement must do the same.
Kairos-climate time can create vision-hope where we see the finish line and lead us to action-hope where we cross that line in victory.
Just like the Olympics occurs on a schedule every four years, and other sporting events happen yearly, or weekly, or daily, so too do our opportunities to overcome climate change by achieving a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. Chronos provides us with new kairos moments. One may have passed us by, never to come again, but a new one will open before us tomorrow or next week or next year.
Every missed kairos moment makes the next one more momentous until one day we will have missed them all.
The catch with climate change is that every missed kairos moment makes the next one more momentous until one day we will have missed them all. Just like an aging athlete, wisdom and experience can compensate for some of the loss in performance, but at some point that last fight, that last race, that last meet, that last game, that last match comes to us all.
Our hope lies in the fact that many climate-kairos-moments have been seized, and more so every day.
The good news is that we are the hope we’ve been waiting for. Hope is in our hands. And even if you should falter at times, others are achieving victories and are ready to take you by the hand and lift you to your feet to join the race so together you can attain victory for the human race and every creature on the Earth. Join us!
Remember to check out the other posts in this Fields of Action series. If you are new here check out the Introductory Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.