Wither

In order to grow in moral and spiritual stature we must learn to follow the path of a grain of wheat.

Dream Theater - Wither


Let it out, let it out
Feel the empty space
So insecure
Find the words
And let it out

Staring down, staring down
Nothing comes to mind
Find the place
Turn the water into wine

But I feel I'm getting nowhere
And I'll never see the end

So I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I breakdown
And let the story guide me

Turn it on
Turn it on
Let the feelings flow
Close your eyes
See the ones you used to know

Open up open up
Don't struggle to relate
Lure it out
Help the memory escape
Still this barrenness consumes me
And I feel like giving up

So I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I breakdown
And let the story guide me

I wither
And give myself away

Like reflections on the page
The world's what you create

I drown in hesitation
My words come crashing down
And all my best creations
Burning to the ground
The thought of starting over
Leaves me paralyzed

Tear it out again
Another one that got away

I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear

I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I breakdown
And let the story guide me
I wither
And give myself away

Like reflections on the page
The world's what you create

The Mirror

Dream Theater - The Mirror


Temptation-
Why won't you leave me alone?
Lurking Every Corner, everywhere I go

Self Control-
Don't turn your back on me now
When I need you the most

Constant pressure tests my will
My will or my won't
My Self Control escapes from me still...

Hypocrite-
How could you be so cruel
and expect my faith in return?

Resistance-
Is not as hard as it seems
When you close the door

I spent so long trusting in you
I trust you forgot
Just when I thought I believed in you...

[Sample is Meryl Streep from the film "Falling In Love".]
"What're you doing?
What're you doing?"

It's time for me to deal
Becoming all too real
living in fear-
Why did you lie and pretend?
This has come to an end
I'll never trust you again
It's time you made your amends
Look in the mirror my friend

[Sample is Jeremy Irons from the film "Damage".]
"That I haven't behaved as I should"
[Sample is Mary Beth Hurt from the film "Light Sleeper".]
"Everything you need is around you. The only danger is inside you."
[Sample is Jeremy Irons from the film "Damage".]
"I thought you could control life, but it's not like that. There are things you can't control."

Let's stare the problem right in the eye
It's plagued me from coast to coast
Racing the clock to please everyone
All but the one who matters the most

Reflections of reality
are slowly coming into view
How in the hell could you possibly forgive me?
After all the hell I put you through

It's time for me to deal
Becoming all too real
living in fear-
Why'd I betray my friend?
Lying until the end
Living life so pretend
It's time to make my amends
I'll never hurt you again

Learning To Live

Dream Theater - Learning to Live


There was no time for pain
No energy for anger
The sightlessness of hatred
slips away
Walking through winter streets
alone
He stops and take a breath
With confidence and self-
control

I look at the world and see no
understanding
I'm waiting to find some sense
of strength
I'm begging you from the
bottom of my heart to show
me understanding

I need to live life
Like some people never will
So find me kindness
Find me beauty
Find me truth
When temptation brings me to
my knees
And I lay here drained of
strength
Show me kindness
Show me beauty
Show me truth

The way your heart sounds
makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure
the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
makes all the difference
In learning to live
Here before me is my soul
I'm learning to live
I won't give up
Till I've no more to give

Listening to the city
Whispering its violence
I set out watching from above
The 90s bring new questions
New solutions to be found
I fell in love to be let down

Once again we dance in the
crowd
At times a step away
From a common fear that's all
spread out
It won't listen to what you say
Once you're touched you stand
alone
To face the bitter fight
Once I reached for love
And now I reach for life

Another chance to lift my life
Free the sensation in my heart
To ride the wings of dreams
into changing horizons
It brings inner peace within my
mind,
As I'm lifted from where I've
spilt my life
I hear an innocent voice
I hear kindness, beauty and
truth

The way your heart sounds
makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure
the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
makes all the difference
In learning to live
Spread before you is your soul
So forever hold the dreams
within our hearts
Through nature's inflexible
grace
I'm learning to live

I Walk Beside You

Dream Theater - I Walk Beside You


There's a story in your eyes
I can see the hurt behind your smile
For every sign I recognize
Another one escapes me

Let me know what plagues your mind
Let me be the one to know you best
Be the one to hold you up
When you feel like you're sinking

Tell me once again
What's beneath the pain you're feeling
Don't abandon me
Or think you can't be saved

I walk beside you
Wherever you are
Whatever it takes
No matter how far
Through all the may come
And all that may go
I walk beside you
I walk beside you

Summon up your ghosts for me
Rest your tired thoughts upon my hands
Step inside this sacred place
When all your dreams seem broken

Resonate inside this temple
Let me be the one who understands
Be the one to carry you
When you can walk no further

Tell me once again
What's below the surface bleeding
If you've lost your way,
I will take you there

I walk beside you
Wherever you are
Whatever it takes
No matter how far
Through all that may come
And all that may go
I walk beside you
I walk beside you

Oh, where everything is wrong
Oh, where hopelessness surrounds you
Oh, the sun will rise again
The tide you swim against
Will carry you back home
So don't give up
Don't give in

I walk beside you
Wherever you are
Whatever it takes
No matter how far
Through all that may come
And all that may go
I walk beside you
I walk beside you

In The Name Of God

Authentic faith and reason must go together.  One without the other becomes reductive, narrow and distorted -- paving the way for false prophets attempting to justify crimes in the name of God.  Here there is no concept of tolerance or respect for the other -- only the forceful imposition of ideology.   

Dream Theater - In The Name of God


How can this be?
Why is he the chosen one?

Saint gone astray
With a scepter and a gun

Learn to believe
In the mighty and the strong

Come bleed the beast
Follow me it won't be long

Listen when the prophet
Speaks to you
Killing in the name of God

Passion
Twisting faith into violence
In the name of God

Straight is the path
Leading to your salvation
Slaying the weak
Ethnic elimination

Any day we'll all be
Swept away
You'll be saved
As long as you obey

Lies
Tools of the devil inside
Written in Holy disguise
Meant to deceive and divide
Us all

Listen when the prophet
Speaks to you
Killing in the name of God

Passion
Twisting faith into violence
In the name of God

Blurring the lines
Between virtue and sin
They can't tell
Where God ends
And mankind begins

They know no other
Life but this
From the cradle
They are claimed

Listen when the prophet
Speaks to you
Killing in the name of God

Passion
Twisting faith into violence
In the name of God

Hundreds of believers
Lured into a doomsday cult
All would perish
In the name of God

Self-proclaimed messiah
Led his servants
To their death
Eighty murdered
In the name of God

Forty sons and daughters
Un-consenting plural wives
Perversions
In the name of God

Underground religion
Turning toward
The mainstream light
Blind devotion
In the name of God

Justifying violence
Citing from the Holy Book
Teaching hatred
In the name of God

Listen when the prophet
Speaks to you
Killing in the name of God

Passion
Twisting faith into violence
In the name of God

Religious beliefs
Fanatic obsession
Does following faith
Lead us to violence?

Unyielding crusade
Divine revelation
Does following faith
Lead us to violence?

Repentance

Dream Theater - Repentance


Hello, mirror, so glad to see you my friend
It's been a while...

Staring at the empty page before me
All the years of wreckage running through my head
Patterns of my life I thought adorned me
Revealing hurtful shame and deep lament

Overwhelming sorrow now absorbs me
As the pen begins to trace my darkest past
Signs throughout my life
that should have warned me
Of all the wrongs I've done for which I must repent

I once thought it better to regret
Things that I have done than haven't
Sometimes you've got to be wrong
And learn the hard way
And sometimes you've got to be strong
When you think it's too late

Staring at the finished page before me
All the damage now so clear and evident
Thinking about the dreaded task in store for me
A pit of fear at the thought of my amends

Hoping that this step will help restore me
To face my past and ask for forgiveness
Cleaning up my dirty side of this unswept street
Could this be the beginning of the end?

I once thought it better to regret
Things that I have done than haven't
Sometimes you've got to be wrong
And learn the hard way
And just when you're through hanging on
You're saved

"Until that moment, I'd never felt like I'd failed at anything...And I felt like I failed her...And I failed myself, and I failed my children...It's still really hard to deal with."

"I want to thank you for helping me to see my own selfishness and to tell you how regretful I am it has hurt you."

"I'm sorry I didn't visit you in the hospital, Grandpa when you were on your deathbed. I'm sorry I didn't come to your funeral...I don't know if I was selfish or just too scared to face it. It's one of the biggest regrets of my life."

"I'm here to confess with you that what I did, was wrong... And I'm asking for your forgiveness..."

"The only unforgivable thing hauls itself out of bed, looks over my shoulder at the bloody English weather..."

"I really regret not being able to see my friend Andy..."

"One of my best friends who's the godfather of my daughter, he asked me to sing or play something at his wedding, and I turned it down because I was busy and too much of a chicken shit to do it...And I feel sorry for that, because it was a very very close friend of mine..."

"So, I wanted to apologize to anyone that I've upset or offended.. they're just words, it's just an opinion, but unfortunately, I tend to express it as a fact, and that's kind of arrogant. Isn't it?"

"I think it's the betrayal...it still haunts me."

"I'm sorry for what I did back then... I was a different person. I really was and I'm so sorry. I wish it wouldn't have happened, but it did, and I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry..."

"I guess I'm simply sorry for being me and not you. I so often wish you could be here with me to show me the way..."

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

"You're only as sick as your secrets, but the truth shall set you free..."

"The truth is the truth and the only thing you can do is to live with it."

This Dying Soul

A conscience that is not yet completely numb can still respond to the call and make a break out of the prison: the courage and humility to make amends for past mistakes.

Dream Theater - This Dying Soul


Hello, Mirror - so glad to see you my friend, it's been a while
Searching, Fearless - where do I begin to heal this wound of self-denial

Face yourself man!
Brace yourself and trace your hell back

You've been blinded, living lie a one way cold existence all the while
Now it's time to stare the problem right between the eyes you long lost child

I wanna feel your body breaking
Wanna feel your body breaking and shaking and left in the cold
I want to heal your conscience making a change to fix this dying soul

Born into this world a broken home
Surrounded by love yet all alone
Forced into a life that's split in two
A mother and a father both pulling you

Then you had to deal with loss and death
Everybody thinking they know best
Coping with this shit at such an age
Can only fill a kid with pain and rage

Family disease pumped through your blood
Never had the chance you thought you could
Running all the while with no escape
Turning all that pain in to blame and hate

Living on your own by twenty one
Not a single care and having fun
Consuming all the life in front of you
Burning out the fuse and smoking the residue

Possessive obsessions selfish childish games
Vengeful resentments
Passing all the blame
Living out a life of decadence
Acing without thought of consequence
Spreading all your lies from coast to coast
While spitting on the ones that matter most

Running power mad with no control
Fighting for the credit they once stole
No one can ever tell you what to do
Ruling other's lives while the can't stand the thought of you

A living reflection seen from miles away
A hopeless affliction having run astray

I wanna feel your body breaking
Wanna feel your body breaking and shaking and left in the cold
I want to heal your conscience making a change to fix this dying soul

Now that you can see all you have done
It's time to take that step into the kingdom
All your sins will only make you strong
And help you break right through the prison wall

Come to me my friend (Listen to me)
I'll help this torture end (Help to set me free)
Let your ego go (I can't carry this load)
You can't go through this alone (I feel so hopeless and exposed)
You'll find your peace of mind (Give me some direction)
You can no longer hide (Break out of this isolation)
Let humility (Openness, honesty)
And become what you can be (A healing tranquility)

Help me
Save me
Heal me
I can't break out of this prison all alone

These tormenting ghosts of yesterday
Will vanish when exposed
You can't hold onto your secrets
They'll only send you back alone

Your fearless admissions
Will help expel your destructive obsessions
With my help I know you can
Be at one with God and man

Hear me
Believe me
Take me
I'm ready to break right through this prison wall

The Root Of All Evil

Weakness of will can lead to the prison of multiple vices and the brink of a dying soul. 

 

Dream Theater - The Root of All Evil


Proud enough for you to call me arrogant
Greedy enough to be labeled a thief
Angry enough for me to go and hurt a man
Cruel enough for me to feel no grief

Never could have just a part of it
I always need more to get by
Getting right down to the heart of it
The root of all evil has been running my whole life

Dirty enough for me to lust
Leaving nothing left to trust
Jealous enough to still feel envious
Lazy enough to sleep all day
And let my life just waste away
Selfish enough to make you wait for me

Driven blindly by our sins
Misled so easily
Entirely ready to leave it behind
I'm begging to break free

Take all of me
The desires that keep burning deep inside
Cast them all away
And help to give me strength to face another day
I am ready
Help me be what I can be

Self-centered fear has got a hold of me
Clutching my throat
Self righteous anger running all through me
Ready to explode

Procrastination paralyzing me
Wanting me dead
These obsessions that keep haunting me
Won't leave my head

Help to do for me what I can't do myself
Take this fear and pain
I can't break out this prison all alone
Help me break these chains

Humility now my only hope
Won't you take all of me
Heal this dying soul

I can feel my body breaking
I can feel my body breaking
I'm ready to let it all go
I can feel my body shaking
Right down to the foundation
The root of it all

Take all of me
The desires that keep burning deep inside
Cast it all away
And help to give me strength to face another day
I am ready
Help me what I can be
I am ready
Come to me
Take me away