Compline - End of Day Prayer

January 9, 2025

COMPLINE with +Bishop Durrell

[Compline is the end of day prayer as one prepares for sleep.

Tonight's Compline includes reflection and meditation as well as a closing prayer.]

California is on fire. Lives are being turned upside down. It will take months or years for some people to fully recover.

By the way, it’s fire. It’s not a divine tantrum or a curse or the fulfillment of some ancient prognostication. It’s fire. It happens. We don’t need superstition or conspiracy drama. What is needed is our concern and our compassion and our generosity.

While fires rage in one area, bitter cold attacks others.

And while the elements misbehave (and of course climate change is a factor and should be addressed), a country mourns the loss of a great humanitarian.

President Jimmy Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity, and the Carter Center’s work around the world, has touched innumerable lives. In addition to election oversight and diplomatic efforts, the Carter Center also employs about 200 people in Atlanta and thousands more throughout the world. The sort of leader who never stops trying to make the world a better place for everyone is too rare, and now there is one less. Of course we grieve.

BREATHE. Let’s spend one full minute in silence just noticing our breath. Let’s take a full minute respite from all the crazy and all the scary and all the unknown. Let’s have one perfect minute of relaxed breathing and calmness. We deserve it and we can have it. Right now.

Following the breath can be a prayer. A prayer for peace by embracing it and letting it then float into the atmosphere. Another word for breath is “spirit.” When we connect with Breath, we are touching something sacred and powerful and beautiful. Breathe.

We can also ask the Universe to help us, or the angels to guide us, or the ancestors to be with us, or the saints to pray for us, or for the God of our understanding to hold us throughout all the ups and downs of life. Breathe. Pray. Repeat as needed.

My close of day prayer:

Let showers of blessing heal California, and a warm breath of heaven minister to those facing dangerously cold temperatures.

Let peace seem more real than problems. And may we have the courage and the grace to hope, no matter how many times hope didn’t seem to change the outcomes. Still, hope banishes despair, at least for a while, and sometimes, what we hope for does come to pass. Oh, let us dare to hope, or at very least, let us hope to find hope.

May the legacy of Jimmy Carter continue to bless the world, and may we bless his memory even as his memory inspires us. And may humanitarians and peacemakers and justice workers and lovers of humankind rise among us, and may we be willing to count ourselves among them in some measure.

It is in peace and with faith that I pray. Amen.

Bless you and Good night.

+Bishop Durrell