I wrote this piece in 2015 shortly after the South Carolina church shooting.  I was trying to create a sense of these people's prayers interrupted by senseless violence, but also the hope that as they tried to rise above the hate, somehow we might also do so. The music is based on the spiritual "Amen" deconstructed and then eventually inverted so that it becomes a new outward reaching motive trying to find hope in the midst of sadness and terror.