I’ve been introduced to a new word: Trysting: An agreement as between lovers, to meet at a certain time and a certain place.
Remember the movie Forrest Gump. There is this tree that Jenny and Forrest get together at every summer year after year from the time that they were children. In the end of the movie when Jenny dies that is where he buries her body. This has been their trysting place. It was often unspoken, but they knew if they ever wanted to find each other, that is where they would.
The word trysting can also describe reunions or get togethers between people that want to keep a bond. So here is a good example for Father’s Day. And it shows the love between father and son. David and his father would get together every Thursday just to have dinner as father and son. His father wanted to be able to connect with him so he started the tradition. This fall I’m marrying David and his bride to be and can you guess who he chose for his best man? His father. There getting together at an agreed upon time and place formed a close bond.
Remember the book “Tuesday’s with Morrie.” Every Tuesday night Mitch Album would get together with his dying teacher and friend Morrie. It’s a beautiful account of the closeness and intimacy that comes when we Tryst.
Every Sunday my family gets together around 3pm for a family dinner at my parents house. We’ve done it for years. I just know that if I head to my parents house on Sunday I will be surrounded by my family.
God invites us to be with Him at a certain time and in a certain place. God desires that there be a trysting with us.
This is how Moses experienced this trysting with God.
“Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the lord had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets.” Exodus 34:4b-6
Moses had this real and personal relationship with God. God invited Moses to come and meet him at a specific time and place: Early in the morning (time) and on Mount Sinai (place). When Moses went early in the morning up Mount Zion he met God there and “Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with Moses” and spoke to him.
What if we could have an experience like this with God? What if we could have this same intimacy with God? Do you realize that God invites you too to come and be with Him for a while? Think about it, probably a number of times every day God invites you to go away for a while and pray with Him. These invitations can sometimes be subtle, but we know them, and we know when we let the moment pass us by. Why would we miss the opportunity to be together with God?
Just as lovers, intimate friends, and family have a trysting, God also desires to tryst with us, to make an agreement with us to meet at a certain time and a certain place.
Every day of our lives there should be a time and place when we get together with God.
What’s your time and place?
When is a good time?
For Moses, and for some of us, it is early in the morning, in the quiet and peacefulness before the rush of day. For some it is a mid-day moment of rest from the stress and strain of work. For others it will be after the work is finished in the early evening and for some like me it is late at night when the duties of the day have come to an end.
The time doesn’t matter so much, just so you make some kind of agreement to pick a time with God and get together.
What’s your place? Where do you go to meet God?
Moses went up Mount Sinai. It’s a long way for us to find mountains, let alone Mount Sinai, but there are places where God desires to meet you. Maybe it’s going out into nature, no mountains in Cleveland, but we are pretty close to one of the Great Lakes. Nature is a place where many come to experience God, so maybe it’s meeting God in the Metro-Parks, or under a tree in your yard, or my new favorite place out here: “Lakeview Beach.”
We don’t have to go out into nature though, Jesus said “when you want to pray, go to your inner room and close the door.” And we also have a place dedicated to pray; right here in the church, we are in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. What better place to pray than here in the church or even at Nativity where they have exposition every week day until 10pm.
I was just privileged to do a funeral for a lady who, for many years, trysted with the Lord. Every Monday night she could be found at the same time and the same place before our Lord in Adoration.
I think the church is ultimately the best place that we have to pray, but knowing that we can’t always make it up here everyone should have a place to pray right in their own house. Do you have a place that you go to pray? Think about it… Where do you go to tryst with God?
Everyone should have a place to pray: a prayer room, or a prayer corner, or a prayer chair. If you don’t have a place to go to pray and meet God, then arrange for it. God would like nothing more than to have a trysting with you.
A trysting is an agreement, as between lovers, to meet at a certain time and place.
Ok now here’s the biggest one. It happens every week. We have an agreed upon meeting time and place with our Lover of Lovers. Yes, the Eucharist! The next time you question: “Why do we have to go to mass every Sunday?” Remember, this is our trysting. God agrees upon a time and place with us every Sunday at every Catholic Church.
Lovers because they desire so much to be together will plan a time and a place to be together as something to look forward to and enjoy. If God is our first love, then we ought to want to Tryst with God. We should desire and look forward to a time and place of meeting with God.
If you don’t have a Trysting time or place, make a place and set a time every day to get together with the One who loves you more than anyone else possibly could. Create a place in your house where you can go to meet God and commit yourself to a time every day that you will be there. We are all here together to worship in one place and at one time, but God loves you so much that He also wants to spend time with just you alone.
This Trinity Sunday we celebrate that God is relational. Just as the love between a Father and Son can be felt and the love between a happily married couple makes a home so warm and welcoming, God desires to be in relation with us so that others may also be drawn into that love.
This week make a time and place to pray and you too will experience what Moses did that morning, and what the mystics have experienced through the centuries, and what Husband and Wife experience after 50 years of marriage, and the love that a Father has for a Son. When we have a trysting with God we too can experience the love of the Trinity.