MemChurch Daily
March 16, 2021
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PRACTICING HOPE
The daily newsletter of the Memorial Church
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Dear friends,
Today we are delighted to share with you a reflection by Audrey Pettner, '21 of Winthrop House as our first Virtual Senior Talks feature of 2021. Senior Talks are a beloved annual tradition in which each House at the College is invited to nominate a senior to offer a Morning Prayers address. We are honored to continue this tradition virtually this year by way of uplifting their reflections in our Daily Devotional. Thank you Audrey, today we celebrate you and all your fellow Winthrop House seniors!
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The Memorial Church of Harvard University
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SENIOR TALKS
Audrey Pettner '21, Winthrop House
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By Audrey Pettner '21
A few weeks ago, in the earliest days of March, I walked through the Old Yard’s afternoon shadows. It was the first day of birdsong and at my feet, robins pressed their beaks into the damp earth, looking for spring’s first feast. The last rays of sunlight filtered through tree branches, and the light took on a beautiful distilled quality, as if a strip of film had been placed over the sun. I walked, then, through a memory. And for one instant, my body remembered—every cell aching — the first moments of passing through the gates, up the steps of Weld with a suitcase in hand and a nervous smile for the man handing over my official Harvard ID.
When I wrote my application essay to Harvard, I was so struck by the feeling that Harvard was alive with its past, that I would be able to picture and feel all those that walked through before me. The men and women who took part in Harvard’s history did not walk mindlessly. No — rather each distinct soul left its own mark on campus, forever weaving themselves into its spirit. I wanted desperately to walk among those ghosts, through the dappled shade — and shades — of Harvard Yard. To know that in each step I took to walk to class, my feet would pass through the footprints of generations of hopeful souls in pursuit of their own divinely granted purpose. The pavement may be new, the grass fresh cut . . . but the earth remembers those footsteps. The deepest bedrock of Harvard remembers, each layer so finely laid atop another. To be here, to have lived that dream is a humbling gift, an awesome responsibility.
In stumbling, blindly, into my own memory, I walked for a moment over my own seventeen-year-old footsteps. My footsteps chart my course across campus, through the uncertainty and the heartache; the deepest joys and most profound friendships. A eureka moment, and a moment of settling. My memories, my hopes, my fears, and my deepest sense of purpose do not only live within me. They cannot. They are both within my soul and alive, dancing in the world. And sometimes, when the light is just right and robins start to sing, my footprints press back out through time to greet me, to remind me of the blessing of my life and to reassure me as I walk to a new future.
A senior in the College, I study the History of Art and Architecture and Folklore and Mythology. I find the most joy in nature and spend the spring, summer, and fall hiking and backpacking in my native state of Colorado. My four years at Harvard have been the most incredible experience of my life--there are no words that can fully capture my gratitude.
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