The Quiet Mind
In the stillness of my mind
I try to answer the questions I can’t define.
The quiet place is where I go
regardless of where I am.
The heart of man is desperately wicked,
but the mind touches eternity.
It’s where physical meets spirit,
it’s where I meet the Lord.
Often times it’s turbulent,
not a moment of peace or rest.
Other times serene and quiet,
It’s when I’m at my best.
The mind of the spirit
is where I serve God.
The spirit He quickened
So as to discern His word.
To think with clarity
at peace my mind must be.
Unclouded and under control
obedient, yielded and still.
The collection opens with the poem that names its deepest aspiration — a mind stilled, disciplined, and made fit for the presence of God. Scott does not present the interior life as a comfortable or easy place. He presents it honestly — sometimes turbulent, sometimes serene — and names the mind as the sacred geography where physical meets spirit and where he encounters the Lord. This is the poem of spiritual discipline, and it establishes the register of everything that follows.
I have spent a great deal of my life learning the difference between the noise in my mind and the stillness beneath it. This poem is my attempt to describe that geography honestly. The mind that touches eternity is the same mind that generates turbulence and distraction. Both are true. What I am reaching for — and do not always achieve — is the stillness that makes clarity possible. Obedient, yielded and still is not a description of where I always am. It is a description of where I am trying to go.