Fresh Air Prayer | Reflection by Fellow Caroline Kirk '21

What were the rhythms of a Covid year? A fourth year of college? Wake up, workout, live, breathe, eat, learn, and sleep, all from home. Be a roommate, be a friend, be a student still, though different, be a community member when I could.

I had additional and unexpected rhythm to my final year at UVA.

From September to May, I spent time under the Gingko tree every Thursday. “Fresh Air Prayer,” we called it. A time to take a break, step away from the other routines, and be together. Distanced and masked in the beginning, we eventually sat together in May as if it were normal. Maybe we still kept a few extra feet between us, but by then it was just what we were used to!

This random opportunity to engage with Theological Horizons became the catalyst for a new fourth year best friendship, a guaranteed hour on the grass, a time of contemplation and new prayers, a place for friends to come breathe together, and a place for people to share their prayers, hopes, and small struggles. We need these places of community.

This one was a community of truth. I did not realize it until our last gathering in May, but fresh air prayer became a space to simply be in whatever way felt right that day. Without much preparation, showing up together was all that mattered.

My own faith has been defined by questions, a desire to feel peace, and a need to depend on God. When I walk alone, my thoughts are questions, about who I am and where my feet are planted. This has been my natural tendency and this fourth year of different rhythms has engaged this part of my heart.

“She hung on, she trusted, she hoped against hope,” is a line from my Daily Reader for Contemplative Living that accompanied me in my final college semester. Fresh air prayer was a practice in this hanging on, trusting, and hoping against hope. Amidst this crazy year, we asked each other each week, “What is a small joy you’ve experienced today?” “What feeling does the beauty of the Gingko tree elicit in you?”

I believe these practices are urgent. We need the spaces to ask and answer without fear. The spaces to ask the most interested question, not the most interesting. The spaces to breathe and not say anything at all. I write this a month after graduation with gratitude for the way Theological Horizons created this space for all four of my years at UVA, and thankful for the opportunity to be in such a space with fresh air prayer this year. I think, as students, we should seek ecstasy and practice gratitude, seek spaces of peace and challenge our hearts to grow, seek friendship and practice an openness to whoever may end up sitting under the tree with us on any given day.

Each day is an opportunity to hang on, trust, and hope against hope.