On Friday I visited our local plant nursery - and was greeted by Marina, our friend from the Republic of Georgia. As I was describing our grief and Steve's last days to her, I told her that it was odd, but we still felt his presence so strongly at home, and with our friends and family. She reminded me about how members of the more ancient Eastern Orthodox churches believe that the soul stays near in a unique way for 40 days after death before moving on.
The afterlife is a mystery for sure, and I am more in awe of it now than at any other season of my life. When I first met Steve I was in a season of learning to be unhurried, seeing time in a new way than I had been brought up in American Christian culture to think about it. ( Jesus is coming back soon, so you better get busy bringing dying souls to him and making yourself holy....quick!) Presence and attention became my new mantra.
Steve was in a similar shift, but his was more about place. He wanted his inner landscape to reflect the hopes he talked about. He knew that while he appeared 'easy going' and 'laid back' there was lots of internal turmoil.
Externally, the man who had moved close to 35 times in his 40 years had fallen in love with one place: the Birmingham City Limits. He loved Highland Park and 5 Points more than any soul I've known. He walked its streets and knew its residents. He offered presence and attention and care. 'Liminal' and 'kairos' became favorite and regular words in his lexicon.
Kairos is defined in the wikipedia:
Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment). The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.
and:
In the New Testament kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God", the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled). It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (kronos).
In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, before the Divine Liturgy begins, the Deacon exclaims to the Priest, "Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio" ("It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act"); indicating that the time of the Liturgy is an intersection with Eternity.
So, today, I find myself returning to these initial themes and wondering again about time and place, about 'Liturgy intersecting with Eternity,' about being present to my life at this moment, in this place, as it really is, and not shrinking from sorrow but standing right in it until it eases and wanes, and sensing and believing that there is more.