Nepal Reflections: Living in Kairos Time

Each year, a group of BTA students and faculty travel to Nepal to work alongside our partner organizations and experience the culture. Among this year’s team, led by faculty members Judy Oulund and Shelby Haras, was David Szatkowski, who shares the following reflection on being present in each moment.

This June, I had the opportunity to travel to Nepal with friends and teachers from BTA. While the experiences I had and the impact they had are too numerous to name, there was one idea, one word, that had the most profound impact: kairos.

In our first few days of the trip Ms. Oulund introduced the idea of kairos time to our group. Kairos is one of two Greek words for time. While chronos signifies the normal passage of time, kairos signifies an opportune time: the kind we mean when we say, “the time is ripe,” or, “there’s no time like the present.” It’s about living in the present moment, experiencing it and taking hold of it, instead of thinking about what you just did or what you are going to do.

I thought about this a lot as we went into each day at ABBS, a school for kids with special needs. We spent 10 days there and it was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. However, sometimes I found myself thinking about the next day or week or even our return to Boston instead of the present moment, not because I wasn’t enjoying the moment but because that’s just how I’m wired to think. I caught myself early in the week thinking like this and worked on living in kairos time.

I first experienced this when I met Saira, an adorable four-year-old girl who has diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that primarily affects the legs. It was the Thursday of our first week when I first saw her at lunch, sitting in her wheelchair minding her own business. She caught my eye, so I went over to say hi. We laughed and played, which only distracted her from finishing her lunch. I was enamored with everything about her. In that moment, Saira caused me to cherish kairos time more than anything else. I found myself getting caught in her little eyes and sneaky smile, and although she wasn’t in my classroom, I spent every spare moment I could with her. When I was with her I was in kairos time. When she looked into my eyes nothing else really mattered to me.

That was the first time I actually experienced kairos time in action. I cherished every morning, lunch, and after school time I spent with Saira. I look back on every smile and wave in the morning or laugh with a mouth filled with food at lunch and I am glad that in those moments I was present and not distracted by anything else but her.

That sums up the entire trip for me: being physically and mentally immersed in this entirely new culture for those 18 days, around people far, far different from me, without needing to think of anything else except the present moment.

There’s so much more I could share, about Goma Didi’s classroom at ABBS, the Hope House teaching women a trade so they can avoid being trafficked, and hanging out with the boys from the orphanage who are now grown. I am extremely grateful to BTA, Ms. Oulund and Ms. Haras, and everyone who made this trip possible. I pray that as a school we strive to live in kairos time, present to the possibility of each moment, and not distract ourselves by what comes next, counting down the seconds until the bell rings and time is up.