קצת ארוך (ומשעמם ) אבל
A Statement from Neal Morse home Dear fans and friends of Spock´s Beard, By now you know that I´m leaving and I´d like to explain why as best I can...so here goes. First of all, I ´m not leaving because of a lack in anything in the band or the audience. Actually, you´ll never know how hard this was for me to give up, largely because of how wonderful you all are. Al, Nick, Ryo and Dave are incredible, not just as the amazing musicians you know, but as the sweet, always cool and hilariously funny people that they are. I´ll always think of them as ´my guys´. And I´m always touched by the kindness and consideration of our fans; never pushing and always showing care for us as people. You have supported us and given us the platform by which we could dive into the water of our musical dreams. Corny, but true. Let me preface this by saying that, as many of you know, I´ve become a Christian in recent years, and it´s changed me (duh!). Through my relationship with Jesus Christ, I feel I´m growing closer to God, and that´s become the most important thing in my life. Having His holy spirit living in me is unbelievable!! (literally to some of you J ), and I don´t want to do anything that would cause it to leave or lessen. There´s something they talk about in the Bible called ´grieving the holy spirit´ and I believe that if I did that (by not doing what God´s asking me to do), it would wind up being bad for everyone. I don´t want to be too dramatic here, but I do want to be truthful with you all. This is something I´ve been thinking and praying and grieving about for almost a year. It started around last December. I was running in the morning (I pray while I run) and I felt the Lord compelling me to turn around and go a different way. I didn´t want to. I was used to my routine and I liked it. But I kept feeling Him tugging on me. Why? I don´t know. After I considered it for a while I turned around and went the other way. Once I did that I felt the Lord´s pleasure. I know this may sound bizarre, but I felt like a host of angels were cheering! Then the Lord said "here´s what I want you to do, finish this album (SNOW), QUIT THE BAND and await further instructions." So, I let that sit for a while. I pleaded with God. I ignored Him for awhile. But, every time I prayed about it for the next 6 months or so, I felt the same thing. Many times what I got back was a simple "you know.....you know what to do"(This was all during the making of SNOW. What a bizarre time!). I got very angry about that at certain times. I said "Lord, if you want me to wreck a bunch of people´s dreams, remember this isn´t just MY dream, it´s the band´s as well....and all the family´s involved... I mean, Spock´s isn´t LIKE family, it IS family!......and how will I take care of MY family ....and the band is just SO GOOD...if you want me to give that up you´re going to have to give me something more than ´you know´. " I really came face to face with how huge of a thing Spock´s Beard (and everything that goes along with it) is to me. I thought I had put it on the altar (given it to God) years before, but, at the prospect of REALLY giving it up, I could barely breathe. It´s still hard. וזה ממשיך.....עוד ועוד....