The Office of Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle has its origins in the Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, where Peter Hallock, a Royal School of Church Music student from 1949 to 1951, and fellow classmates chanted Compline. In 1955, at Hallock’s invitation, 12 music students from the University of Washington gathered at St. Mark’s to study and sing plainsong. A few months later, this group became the Compline Choir and began singing the Office of Compline for others on Sunday nights. Compline has developed a lasting popularity of almost mythical proportions, unlike any other worship event in the Pacific Northwest. The service continues to attract a diverse congregation upwards of 500 people, who come to sit in the quiet and dimly lit nave, to listen to words and music, and to be renewed and comforted by this ancient liturgical office. The reasons behind the success and popularity of Compline are difficult to pinpoint. The choir sang to an empty church at first. However, a congregation blossomed in the 1960s—during the age of the flower children—when Eastern religions began influencing Western thought, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Peter Hallock offers these observations on Compline’s ability to nurture the soul: “The presence of such a substantial congregation…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 (in his autobiography In My Own Way), ‘…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 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 activity…to act contrary to the icons of contemporary society—money, power, material comfort. These values cannot sustain or nourish the soul.” Jason Anderson offers these words: “Compline occurs in space—not just the acoustical space of the cathedral, but also the psychological space opened for us in darkness and night. Those gathered—at the cathedral, listening to the radio, internet broadcast, or via online download—form a congregation engaged in a mystical experience that helps facilitate a journey towards the Divine.” The Compline Choir is a unique community of laypersons with diverse beliefs that seeks to express musically a concern for the nurture and care of the soul—spiritual nourishment. Our objective is to recognize and respond to the hunger for the numinous and transcendent presence of God in our lives.