Kairos

I first learned of the Greek word kairos about two years ago. For rhetoricians and other communicators, it's a particularly meaningful concept, though only hardcore rhetoricians get pleasure out of overusing it. BYU's Silvae Rhetoricae describes kairos as "the opportune occasion for speech":

[It] generally refers to the way a given context for communication both calls for and constrains one's speech. Thus, sensitive to kairos, a speaker or writer takes into account the contingencies of a given place and time, and considers the opportunities within this specific context for words to be effective and appropriate to that moment. As such, this concept is tightly linked to considerations of audience (the most significant variable in a communicative context) and to decorum (the principle of apt speech)...
Whether or not a rhetorical critic employs the term kairos, he or she will examine the exigencies and constraints of place, time, culture, and audience that affect choices made by speakers and authors to influence that moment.

Kairos, then, is all about context, appropriateness, and perception. It involves understanding what needs a situation reveals, discerning what actions would best meet those needs, and then providing them in a manner ideal for securing the desired effect. But that's only one half of it.

When I was trying to figure out what kairos was, I ended up doing database searches -- and most of the sources that I found weren't about rhetoric or communication. They were about Christian theology -- scholars studying the old texts and trying to figure out their role in this time.

Turns out that kairos is a pretty important word in the New Testament. Bible writers and their modern interpreters have used kairos to describe God stepping into human experience and acting in uniquely context-driven and culturally-appropriate ways -- but always at the appointed time. From the NT's standpoint, that's the root of kairos: the "fixed and definite time," the season, the temporal space that God defines for particular actions or events. In Thayer's, I particularly like the definition "opportune or seasonable time," which the writers say suggests advantage. I think it also suggests limitation because the opportune time cannot be opportune forever. But there is that kairotic moment -- however long a moment might be -- when the winds are just right, the tides are level, the crew is ready to go, and the ship should be out there sailing.

I see kairos as the busy intersection between the appropriate how and the appropriate when. For me, that "how" always involves the "who" and the "why" ... something that has often made my ethical life pretty interesting. And I'd even go so far as to say that a sense of context-conscious perception and action is the groundstone of meaningful living. Think of any person who ever had a bigger-than-themselves impact on anything at all, and I can almost guarantee they had a sharply defined sense of "the opportune time." Statesmen, parents, nurses, preachers; fella trying to get a phone number; saleswoman trying to make a pitch: it's all about kairos.

Writing under the title "The Kairotic Word" reminds me to consider context. It drives me to consider the broader, global, and eternal issues, but not neglect the local needs. And in terms of very tangible, un-philosophical things, kairos makes life a hell of a lot simpler. The bus you missed by half a minute? Not kairotic. The guy who's physically, emotionally, or spiritually unavailable? Not kairotic. The job that looked right but now looks left? Not kairotic. Let it go.

It's almost a sermon in a word. A re-focusing. Re-centering. And that's why I gave this blog the name I did.