the bittersweet between my teeth

In Hinduism, he told me, there are two paths to G-d: Love and Knowledge. In high school, I think I followed that Love path--loving my youth group, loving my leaders and friends. Then college came, and with it the path of Knowledge.

I can see how some would think of it this way, the quest for Knowledge itself as a way of being hungry. And I don't want to discount that.

But I don't know if Knowledge is a path to G-d.

Because how does thirst really ever come except by knowing you are utterly dry, and without? Is this why is says do not be wise in your own eyes? Love and Knowledge are compatible, but they are also not equal.

But thirst, to thirst in your blood and in your bones and in your eye sockets and nerve endings, to want, desire, crave, ache for, need something more--this must be a path to G-d. How could someone live thirsty and not in the end meet G-d?

Like the Spanish boy in The Alchemist, who sells his entire flock of sheep and leaves everything he knows to get to Egypt. Even if he doesn't make it, he will die trying to find and fulfill his legend.

And lately that question that gnaws at me--can people change?--has taken a new dimension, Can a person become hungry? Are we either born or not born with this hunger? Can it be grown in us? I know it is not hereditary.

I want to be able to believe that overarching statement that we are all longing for the same world, whether we know it or not, we are all longing for connection and for freedom and for the Prince of Peace to reign on earth. But sometimes I'm not so sure...

But as for me, I have to get to Egypt. If it means selling everything I have, I will buy no other way. Even if I never see the pyramids, I will not rest from this desert crossing. I will walk mi camino propio, and I will not wish for another.