“But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16)

Saving Christ, be thou my mind,
All compassionate and kind.
Open self that I might see
Without you there is no me. (©️ 2016; 2005)

“When I wrote this poem over fifteen years ago, the sentences started coming while I was exercising. And when I was finished, I sat down and wrote out the poem. At the time, I didn’t really even understand this last verse all that well myself. The last line was even a bit startling to me…. But many years of research and reading and praying have made its meaning clearer. Support for it can be found in the writings of St. Paul where he says, “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). …Then, when our thinking is flooded with fear of illness, we pray to the Lord, “be thou my mind.” When we can’t sleep because of worry, we reach out to the Saviour saying, “be thou my mind.” When we have been imposed on and want to strike back, we ask for Christ’s help saying, “be thou my mind. The same Christ that was present at the moment of our creation is with us now—“all things continue because of him.” He, and not the natural world, is the source of our conscious individuality, the larger life that we human beings all have.” (Living Calm, chapter 8)