Lusting for Infinity

NEW SECOND EDITION includes a Study and Reflection guide


Preface by Rabbi Bradley Hirschfeld


Two friends, one an academic and the other a plumber and sometime poet, set off on a backpacking trip into the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. Both men intend to escape their ordinary work-a-day existences and commune with raw nature. More importantly, however, they seek to explore the nature of religion. 

One of the men must account for his spiritual past, present, and future, including a broken marriage, a new love—along with a wandering family. The other man wrestles his own history, haunted by a fractious war. Along the way, a host of memorable characters accompany them on the trip. Both men start their journey together but each must ultimately blaze a separate trail. 

Lusting for Infinity is equal parts road trip, modern odyssey, a hero’s quest, and religious inquiry. Author Tom W. Boyd, explores the meaning and character of religion by engaging the reader in a conversational tone punctuated with autobiographical accounts that explore, discover, and then reflect upon such topics as: 


• Why is anyone religious at all? 

• Can religion be understood by seeking its origins? 

• Are the roots of religion historical or existential? 

• Is religion inherent in the human condition? 

• What role does humanity’s transitory condition play in religion? 

• What happens when the religious sensibility does not take form? 


Lusting for Infinity is a welcome guidebook for those of us who are eager to reflect on the meaning and character of religion and its role in society and our lives. It is both a deeply moving tale and a metaphysical exploration. “Tom Boyd has crafted a masterwork. The book pulses with a spirituality that reflects the Transcendentalism of Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau, the wisdom of the ages from a generous array of philosophical traditions, and the ecological connectedness of John Muir and Aldo Leopold. Reading this book is at once challenging and delightful. It is like spending time traveling, hiking, communing deeply with nature, alongside a gracious guide and master teacher, whom you just can tell has thought about things deeply and has come out the other side with a hard won reverence and wisdom. If you read only one book this year, this is the one you want.” - Thomas J. Burns, Professor of Sociology, University of Oklahoma