A Perfect End

Of all the things I got to experience as part of my monastery stay, by far my favourite was “Compline.”

Compline is the short, sweet, last service of the day. As the sun goes down the monks sing their final hymns and say their final prayers of the day. It is “the hour of peaceful transition into the realm of sleep.”

Today, at the end of November, as many of us writers and bloggers are coming to the end of a long and often tiring month of daily blog-related activities, it occurs to me that the blessing of Compline may be exactly what we all need…

So, dear fellow writers/bloggers/readers/humans, whether you have smashed your goals out of the park this month, reignited a passion for writing or some other project, have just skidded under the finish line at the last second, or stopped – overwhelmed – somewhere along the way, I offer these words to you:

“We entrust our hearts to the blessing of rest
and to the night – an ocean yielding many a surprise.

May the Lord grant us
A peaceful night
And a perfect end.”

-from the Kopua Monastery’s Compline booklet description.

Happy end of November, and a peaceful and perfect end to Nano Poblano to you all!