Time-Traveling Monks.

Or, how to see, know, and create God’s time.

In Greek, there are two different words for time.

The first, chronos, means the time we’re all familiar with. It’s the ticking of a clock, the rotation of the earth, and the movement of the earth around the sun. While we have different time zones for different places, chronos is the same time no matter where you are.

But there’s another kind of time — Kairos. This is closely related; it means real time, or God’s time. If you’ve ever been to the DMV, you know the way an hour in line can stretch into an eternity. On the other hand, I can binge watch eight episodes of The Office in what seems like the blink of an eye. That’s kairos.

The Abbey of our Lady of Gethsemani.

This past weekend, I drove up to the Abbey of our Lady of Gethsemani in southern Kentucky for a silent retreat. I stayed in converted monastic quarters (a tad bit nicer than my freshman dorm), with a silence so deafening it was almost unnerving.