Leaving Compline

My friend and I love to go to Compline. How wonderful it is to sit in the candlelit sanctuary and watch the soft light gleam on the polished woodwork of the pews and the ornate scroll work on the sacristy. The forms of angels holding up the pulpits and altars, the muted figures in the Last Supper wall hanging create a sense of sacredness.



You hear the nine o'clock bells toll, and you count them in your head. You know that as the last vibration dies away, the robed singers will silently enter, surrounding the communion table, their black music stands each lighted with a tall white candle.



They place their music on the stand and wait for the director's measured signals, and suddenly the music begins. At first, just one deep voice chanting words of comfort and encouragement for us as we face another long night. Then other voices wind their tones around the chancel until the entire choir - all eighteen of them - pour their flowing sound into the quiet air where it rises the full twenty feet to the top of the dome, flooding out into the congregation, lifting us up with its velvet fluidity, caressing our hearts with joy and confidence in Christ whose words are true, whose promises are dependable, who will not leave us alone.



I close my eyes, reveling in the palpable sounds, especially blessed by the motets and their unexpected harmonic turns. I hear my friend breathe deeply and exhale slowly. I do the same. It is delicious, being bathed in golden vibrations of harmony filled with uplifting texts. I want it to go on and on forever.



Too soon the half hour is up. The singers close their music books and silently exit stage right, followed by the director, his brown robe swishing slightly. Two priests make their way up the aisle, snuffers in hand, their shoes thudding dully on the bare wood floor. They genuflect at the altar, then begin extinguishing the candles at the back of the chancel. Darkness overtakes the dimly lit space, eating away at the light like bites out of a cookie. People linger in the pews, reluctant to leave. We are shocked at being expelled so rudely. Don't turn out the lights and make us go out into the cold cruel world! We want to stay where it is warm and safe.



But the darkness is too hard to fight. By ones and twos we leave, brushed out by the priests who move methodically through the sanctuary, sweeping it clean of its light and its occupants. Our one consolation: God leaves with us, in our hearts and in our minds. We are not alone even though we have left the building.