Only after dropping her at
the convent and returning to the church did the priest act on his curiosity. He helped her from the car, carried her bag the short distance to the convent entrance, and waited until the door opened and she stepped inside with a quiet word of thanks. Then he turned the car around and drove back along the same roads, the earlier conversation still present in his thoughts. The church stood quiet when he arrived. The evening lights glowed softly through the windows. He entered, locked the outer door behind him,
and made his way to the small room where he kept his books and the well-worn Bible he consulted each day.
Still wondering what message he might be missing, he finally looked up Psalm 129 for himself. He opened the volume, turned the thin pages with care, and found the numbered chapter. He read the lines slowly, following each phrase as it unfolded. What he found surprised him: the wording in the passage encouraged the reader to continue forward and look beyond what was immediately visible. The verses spoke of
