Study to be Quiet

Track thirteen takes its title straight from Paul - study to be quiet, and to do your own business. That is a strange command for a man who spent years studying to be heard. But that is exactly why it is on this album. The cage of Break the Cage was always partly a noise problem. Pride wants noise, wants to be seen. It loves the chaos more than what peace means.

The song is honest that quiet is not a personality trait you either have or do not. It is something you learn, something you study. I'm learning just to study to be quiet, to lay it down instead of amplifying riots. Notice the verb - amplifying. The temptation of the age is not just to fight, it is to take every fight and make it louder, pass it along, fan the flame for the clicks and the rush of fame. Christ blessed the peacemakers. He did not bless the trouble-chasers.

And the bridge asks the question that ended the argument for me. What's the point of winning if we lose the light? I won a great many arguments in my hard years. I am not sure I can point to one soul those victories warmed. Truth with grace, not truth with spite. The song ends where the album keeps ending - grace and peace, grace and peace, let it grow in us. That is my own sign-off, the words I close nearly every letter with. It turns out they were a command before they were a closing.