April 15, 2013

Experiments with Compline

Last week I was in Seattle, and on Sunday night I went to Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral. They’ve been doing this for decades and the average attendance is 500. While the choir sang and spoke the Compline service, men and women of all ages sat quietly in the pews. Others lay on the ground and sat on the steps on the floor near the walls. The music was quiet and beautiful and the lights were dimmed. Some people wrote in their notebooks. I saw someone reading the Bible and lots of young couples, probably in college, holding hands or leaning against the each other as they sat on the floor.

People are seeking beauty and quiet and peace, as they always have. They are also seeking flexibility in their experience, the chance to make it their own.

The service reminded me a bit of college. Every Wednesday night we said Compline while sitting on the floor of the chapel with most of the lights off. If I remember correctly, it was at 10 pm, so the college chaplain usually didn’t join us. We made the service our own and Compline still feels like it belongs to me. The prayers are some of my favorite in the Prayer Book, and I can say it alone or with a few friends on a retreat or in a church.

There are other communities that take the service of Compline and make it their own. At Trinity Wall Street, the choir sings an improvised Compline service in the chapel on Sunday nights (you can listen to it here). The Book of Common Prayer offers us many prayers and devotionals like Compline that lend themselves to this flexibility, that allow us to put them in any context—around a dinner table, on the chapel floor, in our living rooms—and use them to fit our community and the needs of the community.

Compline is an easy liturgy to experiment with because it is short and lovely, and it has some flexibility (and it does not require a priest). The prayers, like many in the prayer book, feel connected to a long tradition, but still modern enough to speak to us. You may find that your community is seeking an liturgy they can make their own, during which they can journal or read or meditate or share on social media, or maybe simply sit in a dim chapel on the floor together and pray.

What’s your experience with compline?