Kahlil Gibran, was an incredibly gifted writer, who has provided us through his writing with beautiful insights to go along with his inspiring wisdom. In his book, Jesus the Son of Man, Gibran reads the Beatitudes and paraphrases a particular sentence of it, as follows: “Blessed are they who hunger after truth and beauty, for their hunger shall bring bread, and their thirst cool water.”
When it comes to Holy Scripture it is important for us to be able to read such in a way and manner that not only renews and reinvigorates scriptural passages for us, but also when done astutely, to thus take us to a different level of insight into what has so been written for our edification and for our benefit. The Beatitudes so stated by our Messiah, are not meant to be quickly glanced at or read in a rote-like manner, thereby to be pretty much forgotten when we soon get back to our everyday activities and routines; but rather these Beatitudes are provided to help inspire us to become better people as well as to aid us in getting a renewed perspective about that which we so see, hear, and look upon.
Our hunger is one of the most important driving forces in encouraging our desire to fulfill that hunger in a way and manner that will bring us lasting satisfaction. Those then, that do not hunger after truth and beauty, are the very same people that will find it most difficult to find at some future point, that truth and beauty. In fact, these people that lack the desire and hunger for truth are basically lost, and are typically also those that are essentially wandering around within the same circle again and again, not seeming to comprehend that those that cannot redirect their activities to that straight and narrow pathway of progress, will become trapped within the circle of non-progression. On the other hand, those that will not relent in their search to fulfill that hunger, until they become satiated with the truth that answers sincerely to that hunger, are the very people, that will find such, because that which is meant to be discovered, necessitates the continuous effort to find such, until that goal is successfully so met.
There are plenty of motivations that each of us could pay attention to, of which, some of those motivations are going to be positive and worthy, and some of those things, will lack those credentials. Those that desire to know the truth, as well as to see the beauty which this world can so well represent, have made a noble determination to obtain that which has lasting value, over those other things, that at best, are counterfeit to such, or are simply dead-ends in their construct. There is no higher calling than to not be tied down by the routines and trivialities of what far too many people and societies think are so important, when these very things, represent far too often, distractions to that which is most important.
None of us will find satisfaction until we drink deeply from the very waters that provide such satisfaction, and those clear and cool waters, are represented only by that which is eternal in its construct, as well as being beneficial for us. To walk past truth is to walk past that which will free us from the illusion that we have put in place of that truth; to dismiss beauty, is to misconstrue our opportunity to appreciate the incarnation that we are a part of and to thereby bypass how beautiful this creation at its very best, so represents for us. Each day, we feed the hunger of our body; how much more of value it is to feed the hunger of that which has so actuated us in the first place.