n 1954, twelve students from the University of Washington School of Music gathered in a temporary wooden building behind St. Mark's Cathedral to explore the singing of plainsong. It was not many months later that this small band of scholars decided as a matter of deep personal commitment to put learning to use by singing the Office of Compline every Sunday night.
At first the choir sang to an empty nave. However, in the mid-and late- '60s the service began to attract large numbers of young people, a phenomenon that, to a great extent, can only be accounted for by the search for new cultural values being promulgated by the younger generation of that time. Remains still exist that serve as reminders of a movement that, among other things, must be credited for the interpolation of Eastern religious thought and practice into our lives. The embracing of meditation, yoga and martial arts such as Tai Chi are further examples.
During the ensuing years, the service has continued to attract a large and diverse congregation of four or five hundred people, still mostly young, who come to sit in the silent and darkened nave, to listen to words and music, and to be renewed and comforted by this ancient liturgical office. Since 1960 the service has been broadcast on KING-FM (Seattle's venerable classical music station), and present estimates suggest that over 100,000 people, in all parts of the state of Washington, "attend" the service via radio.
As director of the Compline Choir in Seattle since its inception, I am often asked to explain its large and faithful following. I have no sure answers; I can only offer two observations. First the presence of such a substantial congregation, both those persons in the Cathedral and those listening to the radio, is telling us that a need is being met in the singing of this service that isn't being met otherwise. Alan Watts identified this need when he wrote, "...it simply amazes me that for so many generations the spiritual discipline of millions of ordinary Christians has never, except by chance, involved interior or mystical silence." Silence and time for interior reflection are often identified as the most powerful and moving characteristics of the Compline service.
Second, and more remarkable, the interest in and attraction to the Compline service exists within the context of a society in general and the Christian Church in particular that have become increasingly secularized. Throughout the past forty years, however, the singing of Compline has attempted to speak of other values. With its ministry directed toward spiritual values that nurture the soul, I see us engaged in a radical (from the Latin "radix", meaning root; getting to the root of things) activity. In a real sense we are called to act contrary to the icons of contemporary society - money, power, material comfort. These values cannot sustain or nourish the soul.
The Rev. Ralph Carskadden has said it eloquently:
If we are to grasp the message of
the gospels;If we are to understand the
teachings of Jesus;If we are to be faithful disciples,
then we must realize what
we are called to be:Called to act counter to the
prevailing culture which
surrounds us.
To express musically our concern for the nurture and care of the soul is what we of the Compline Choir are about. We must recognize and respond to the hunger for the numinous and transcendent presence of God in our lives.
Copyright ©1994 Peter R. Hallock
For Further Reading:
Robert Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. (Morrow, 1979)
Peter Matthiessen. The Snow Leopard. (Viking Penguin, 1979)
Alan Watts. In My Own Way: An Autobiography, 1915-1965. (Pantheon Books, 1972).
Marcus J. Borg's Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, especially Chapter 5, "Jesus and Politics in Contemporary Scholarship". (TPI, 1994)