you and me time
You and me time, that’s what my artist friend calls the time she spends in her studio, as she’s sharing that her creativity flourishes as a collaborative expression of her relationship with God. By you and me, she means God with her, God in her, God through her.
“Oh, I just love our you and me time,” she says, right after she tells me exactly how God has lately been leading her into a specific project.
I’ve noticed that people who dwell with God often switch pronouns in the middle of a thought, talking to God while they’re talking about God. David, the great poet-King of Israel, did that too, in his songs.
I grab the phrase when my friend says it; it’s like a small polished stone she casually drops at my feet, leaving it glistening there to collect or disregard. I watch her beautiful face, noticing the way her curls bob and stray around her cheeks while she talks, the way she corrals them with her fingers, pushing them aside, and I wonder if she has any idea what the Spirit of God will do with that phrase once it roots in my heart. She wears the sort of practical expression any sister would when cradling seeds of possibility in her hand, extending them out toward me. Mid-sentence, she flattens one of those hands against her chest, right there at the base of her throat. She smiles inwardly, like she’s savoring a memory.
Immediately, I think of Riley, how she’d like that phrase—you and me time, how she’d want it to describe her every moment. For Riley, very few experiences in life could not be significantly improved by shared presence. Once, when I suggested she might want to go take a shower, she sighed wistfully, stretching her arms above her head as a demonstration of her reluctance, and said, “I just like to do things with other people.”
This time of year, as the leaves catch holy fire and turn to music beneath our feet, my heart follows suit, and I begin to wait watchfully for the with-ness of Christ, for His coming as King of every moment. Advent waiting can be practiced in any season, as an acknowledgement of the good news that God comes to be with His people, that His determination to be with us not only brought Him here and folded him into flesh, but took Him to the cross.
My artist-friend continues, “When I think of it that way, as our you and me time, any reluctance I may have felt about my work begins to melt away.” She uses this phrase with such familiarity I can nearly hear her speaking it in quiet whispers to God, a prayer for perspective.
This is you and me time, Lord.
Like Riley, I can be somewhat limited in my conception of with-ness. I long for it and at the same time have difficulty embracing the truth of it when it doesn’t fit into my limited imagination. I can tell Riley that we are still here with her, even while she showers, but that, of course, isn’t exactly what she receives as presence nor what she means when she says, “I like to do things with people.”
When I sit with my Bible splayed open on my lap in the quiet of morning, sipping on a cup of coffee with eyes fixed on the new light of dawn, it’s easy to whisper my friend’s prayer—This is you and me time, Lord. But in the late afternoon on a Thursday when I turn sore toward the kitchen to finish off our dinner and Riley reads to me every single word of an email reminder and Adam paces around me repeatedly reciting a video game script in announcer voice, this world can feel loud and heavy, and I find it much harder to experience the with-ness of my ever-present God.
For my friend, this you and me studio work comes as an extension of an obvious truth in her life, that God never leaves her, that every moment really is their you and me time. She doesn’t have to explain this to me; I can feel it in the way she lives. I know it by the way her eyes sparkle now, as she reaches for the mug in front of her and takes a sip of her cinnamon tea.
I smile wide, unsurprised to realize that once again, Riley has innocently stumbled onto something just by living her life of love. You and me is for hurting days and quiet days and grieving days and every day, for ordinary moments as much as for extraordinary ones, for the daily and the mundane and the obscure as well as the noteworthy and memorable. God’s you and me covers everything–creativity and serving and loving and laughing and sleeping.
Behold, I am with you always, Jesus said, meaning literally, every kind of day, every kind of time, until the end of time.
It seems that Riley’s wish to do all things with is not just an eccentric extroverted longing but actually a close articulation of God’s great desire to abide as one with His people. It is the yearning of Advent. To live looking for the coming of Christ into absolutely every moment, to pray my artist friend’s prayer over all of it, even the most distracted, the aching, the ugly—This is you and me time, Lord, is to wait, to abide, with the faith Christ loves, faith that believes in you and me even when it can’t conceive of you and me.
“You know,” I say to my friend, reaching for my own mug as I absorb all this, “this is our you and me time, too.”
