Until reading ROLL AROUND HEAVEN, Jessica Maxwell’s vivid memoir, I had no idea that a straight-up book on spirituality could be a page-turner with as much forward momentum as a psychological thriller. Nor did I know that it could be a comic romp, or as Jessica herself puts it in the subtitle, “An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure.” As a former adventure travel and food writer, the first thing Maxwell does in the book is to admit that she bumbled on spirituality, which almost literally came flying at her like a curve ball. Previously she had suffered from an allergy to all things spiritual, due primarily to the cruel treatment one of her aunts had received in a strict church in Texas. Maxwell was keenly aware that talking about spirituality leads inexorably to discussing religion, and discussing religion leads inevitably to arguments about politics. Then her recently dead father’s face suddenly appeared as an enormous, full-color hologram in the sky above her steering wheel, and the look of ecstasy in his eyes was remarkable, given his personality. This event, perhaps a distant echo of Christ’s resurrection, would have been earth-shattering enough, except that Maxwell’s sister was simultaneously treated to the same vision, eleven hundred miles away in Southern California. Jessica’s spiritual career was launched.
ROLL AROUND HEAVEN offers the reader a kaleidoscopic world-wide tour to visit spiritual leaders and highly spiritual places such as Bhutan and the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides, not to mention accidental visitations from the Hindu god Ghanesh. Rarely are Maxwell’s encounters with estimable figures as diverse as Deepak Chopra and Stephen Hawking planned deliberately; in fact Jessica lunched with Chopra in Portland, Oregon but bumped into Hawking in Mumbai! Yet it is perhaps her early encounter with “The Holy Pig Farmer,” one Lory Misel who lives on the foothills of Mount Rainier, that most clearly defines and grounds the book. After reading it, I have had the honor and the privilege of meeting both Jessica Maxwell and Lory Misel, and I can affirm that she is truly a spiritual adventurer and he is indeed one holy pig farmer!
Maxwell’s literary style is a mirror of her personality: it is an open book ready for a myriad of readers to vibrate with and enjoy. Her urgent message is what the world needs most: the declaration that all religions, philosophies and spiritual traditions contain a unifying core of Truth that cannot be tarnished by all the dogma and manipulations that human beings constantly try to wrap around it like a mummy’s sheets. We human beings have already globalized our economies, cultures, and cuisines. Now it is time to take spirituality global. This is the manifesto of ROLL AROUND HEAVEN and also of my own spirituality web-log at http://www.birdofspirit.com. As Maxwell puts it on the book jacket, it is time to “learn an abiding respect for all paths to God.”
Bird of Spirit 