Chairos

The Dean of Winchester, the Very Reverend James Atwell, always gives interesting sermons. Yesterday he said that the Greeks have two words for time: chronos (as in chronology) which referred to the linear progression of time and chairos which referred to the quality of time ie life changing moments. He described one such chairos of a man whom he'd met. This man had been a submarine captain and the submarine had become stuck on the seabed with only 30 minutes of oxygen left. The crew was rushing about in a mad panic. The captain called on everybody to stop what they were doing, to be silent for two minutes and for the Christians among them to pray to God for salvation. During that time, a thought struck the captain: if the whole crew were to stand at one end of the submarine, the collective weight might dislodge the other end from the seabed. The men followed his instructions, there was a jolt and the vessel began to float upwards. This experience changed the captain's life, so much so that he later became ordained.