Roll Around Heaven

September 14, 2009
Successful magazine travel writer Maxwell didn't intend to write a book about spirituality. The author of books on golf, fishing and other nature adventures claimed an “allergy to religion,” yet spirituality seemed to find her anyway. After stumbling upon a lovable pig farmer/spiritual teacher, the self-proclaimed spiritual klutz finds herself wading through adventures with auras, demons, psychics and Jesus. In this book, Maxwell catalogues 16 years of spiritual experiences. The reader is taken through her quest for peace and understanding as she discovers that, regardless of the path, all religions call for loving others. Maxwell draws on religious symbolism from all world religions and quotes everyone from C.S. Lewis to Ramakrishna; the book is essentially spiritual and syncretistic. Readers who find Maxwell more superstitious than authentic should still appreciate her distinctive writing style. Her training as a nature writer allows her to see an experience from the outside in a way inward-looking spiritual writers often cannot. Her cheeky-to-chaste style is both conversational and controlled. Readers will enjoy watching this “former spiritual dodo-brain” discover beauty beyond nature.