The Lives Of The Mystics: A Psalm
This psalm was found during the 1941 excavation of a second-century monastery near in the village of Tokat in what is now Turkey. A team of archaeologists from a university in the northeastern United States found a scroll of the Psalms of David. This poem was written on a separate rectangle of parchment rolled up inside the scroll. Although the structure and mode of expression in this psalm are similar to that of the Hebrew poetry of David’s day, no external evidence has been found to verify or even suggest that he authored this poem.
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The rewards of faithfulness
come late
and out of due time
but they are sweeping
as the tide
and overflow
like the cascading river.
They shock and stagger
even the grandest desire
and overwhelm the fondest imagining.
For the deserving, they are
more than what might have been merited;
more than anyone might have claimed
or argued for.
‘
Even the idolator
cannot turn his head away.
The rewards of the faithful show him
the coldness of his own heart.
They show the covetous
his lust is an abandoned shack
and his imaginings a dry place where there is no light;
neither sun nor lamp.
‘
But the hand that was open
and did not grasp
shall be filled.
The Lord will act
and his late graces shall flood every place
that the obedient has emptied
and never subside.
These gifts belong to the servant
just as his voice or his name
they can never be taken away.
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