So Hallowed and So Gracious is the Time

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

This is Frederick Buechner quoting Shakespeare's Hamlet, in Listening to Your Life, page. 335-336.  Sometimes time seems elastic.  Sometimes the days fly by. Madeleine L'Engle wrote so often about the differences between cronos--our chronological time, and kairos--the sacred timing of events or moments.

I have felt aware of this kairos a few times. Hallowed and gracious times. Times waiting for my children to be born. Time spent with my grandparents and my dad at the end of their lives.  The moment when my husband proposed. Other rare moments in between where that lining between us and God becomes thin and we are truly present, in God's presence. Holy moments.

Christmas is hallowed and gracious to me.  It is just so hard sometimes to sort the grain from the chaff.  I have filled it up so full that it overflows and spills all over and I can't even taste it.  The actual days go by so fast--after all our preparations and planning.

Buechner has another useful quote on page 332:

What deadens us most to God's presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought.  

I might add the endless chatter of family life and even music makes it difficult to find those holy moments. Sometimes being involved with church and having the kids involved with church makes it difficult to find those moments in worship as well--there are logistics front and center in my brain, instead of anything too holy.

I did have one particular holy moment of kairos--God's time--this season--it was at church--during the last verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing--when the sopranos came in with their beautiful descant and the organ pulled out all the stops and the lights came on brightly in the sanctuary.  I felt that holy feeling and remembered deep in my heart why we are here and why Christmas is Christmas.

Hail the heaven born prince of peace

Hail the Sun of righteousness

Light and life to all He brings

Risen with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that we no more may die

Born to raise each child of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn King. 

One clear moment to remember the sacred, hallowed and gracious time.