A couple nights ago, I strode out through the grand double doors to the University of Oregon business center into a warmly bright twilight. It struck me how lovely it was out still at that late hour; how much day length progress our rotation had made in a couple short weeks; and how spring was looming and gay and bounding around everywhere. We were almost almost upon Easter, three days in the future. A tent on the far side of the main walking thoroughfare had strung across it an earth-tone, cool-font poster offering “Free Prayer”. The earth-tone, cool-font vibe definitely seemed like a non-denominational Christian church. Free prayer? I guess. A couple (what I would assume were) students sat in folding chairs under the banner. I heard one call pleasantly after more proximus passing students, “Happy Easter!” as I walked to my bike.

What made me remember and think about it again was how it barely even registered at the time. The remembrance snaked through my head today, “That was a prayer tent on the UO quad. Huh.” It makes me muse on how I feel about prayer now. That night, I don’t even remember consciously weighing how I felt about the fact that the tent was there. Perhaps in my more zealous, faithful years, I might have approached; cheered them on; asked what group or church they were affiliated with and why they were motivated to do this.

Now, my regard is more akin to how I might regard a mosque or a crystals shop. Polite interest if pressed, but defaulting to the irrelevance that grows in the sidewalk cracks between opposing worldviews. It’s there, I’m here. It wouldn’t have mattered how close I ended up to the tent on my walk. Should I have been with a friend who happened to be interested, and who pulled us over to the tent, excitedly gauging accessibility or taking handouts, it wouldn’t have mattered if the tent bore a mosque name or crystals sign or vibey Christian “free prayer” banner over it. I would have politely smiled and stood awkwardly behind.

-LS