Phillipians 1:20 - 23 mihi enim vivere Christus est et mori lucrum. . . quid eligam ignorocoartor autem e duobus desiderium habens dissolvi et cum Christo esse multo magis melius For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.. . . what I shall choose I wot (know) not.For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Mori Lucrum is taken from the book of Phillipians, where the Apostle Paul was preaching to the people of Phillipi, a city in northeastern Greece. It is a mystic text that expresses an intense desire to live again with Christ and how it will be an improvement upon our lives, especially after old age. This is not a suicidal text, as the very next verse Paul says, “Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful.” In writing this song, I interpreted this as a message of comfort through a time of loss. Shortly before writing this, I lost one of my Grandfathers, and have since also lost another Grandfather and one Grandmother. In all three cases, death was a welcome repose for them after lives well-lived, but all were struggling with health and mental capacities by the end. The majority of the song works its way through grief with intense dissonances and movement seeing the death of a loved one through the perspective of those that are left behind, but the last section settles into a major acceptance of death as we start to see death from the perspective of those who have just left us: Gain.
