Life in Slow Motion

I have wanted to talk about the title of my blog, Life in Slow Motion, and after writing my Faith, Hope, and Love paper again, I was led into the notes and ideas that inspired the title (along with David Grey’s great song titled just that…Life in Slow Motion).

There is a lot here that has to do with the past, present, and future. Dan has talked about the different kinds of time in class. There is the kronos time, which is the Greek word for sequential, chronological time. And there is kairos time, which is the Greek word for time that is held in the moment. It is the time that we have the ability as humans to hold, where along with the present we are able to engage with the past and future. We operate on this level of time over and over throughout our day, most of which does not hold significant meaning, like remembering what you had for breakfast or knowing what you are doing tonight.

But there are also certain moments when this time is able to hold for us the deepest, most intense times of desire and joy and sadness all together, where the implications, the importance, the magnitude of the past and the future are met in the here and now, as if that moment is a culmination and expression of everything your life has been about or long for it to be. The good and the bad, the heartache of loss and yet the hope and desire and even greater capacity for joy that rises out of that, all groaning towards the hope for what is to come.

Much of the memory I have of times like these have in many ways been found in past relationships, and what I do know of some of those times is when the girl was able to simply be with me, when she didn’t have to do anything or say anything, but we were able to just sit in the moment, we had such a level of intimacy that time appeared to stand still. That intimacy held so much of the past, so much of the longing for someone to know at such a deep level that was finally becoming real. It also provided a glimpse, a taste of the magnitude of intimacy that would be fully met in what is to come.

I look for that in the women I meet around me. I look to see how they sit with me, how they hold themselves. How they react when they think I’m too quiet or for some reason am intimidating, or even have an interest in me and don’t know what to do with it. How do they hold their heartaches and losses and desires and hopes when they encounter all of mine? Will they cover that up with another self? Will they try to be someone else? Will they talk so much just to fill the time and drown out any real meeting and showing of who they are?

All I know is that when I am able to sit and hold all of these things with someone (doesn’t have to be a girl) usually something amazing happens, something that allows for God to come in. When I am in community, when people are able to simply be, when they are present with one another and not trying to be someone else, that is something amazing. That is something that can create the moments that seem to move in slow motion, where time stands still and the past, present, and future convene.

...so after reading A River Runs Through It for class, I came across a section that seemed to paint this idea in the life of a fly fisherman. The character just lost the biggest fish he had hooked before, the moment standing still in time. He says:

"Poets talk about 'spots of time', but it is really fisherman who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone. I shall remember that son of a bitch forever."