When Jenny Lee asked me to co-write her new book, Walking In Humble Spirit, I jumped at the chance. I saw it as an opportunity to further the studies I’d begun when I wrote my first novel, Sumner Island, a few years back.
By studies, of course, I mean investigation into the unseen – but ever present – realm of universal consciousness. I had grappled with the subject in Sumner Island, but to my frustration, I had only found myself able to explain it in the widest terms. What I really wanted was to bring it down to a personal level, one that any average person can understand, accept and – most important – live their life by.
Enter Jenny Lee.
When Jenny and I first began our conversations that led to Humble Spirit, I viewed the concepts she explained to me in a very metaphysical way. In other words, I saw her teachings the way one might view the lectures of one of the great theoretical physics minds such as Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Even if I could understand it, as an Ordinary Joe I could never apply it to everyday life.
At least that’s what I feared. But Jenny patiently encouraged me to keep trying to get it and eventually would. It wouldn’t happen in one day or even one month, but it would come. I trusted her, because she never judged me, and I kept at it.
And she was right. As time went on, I started to see what this was really about. And I understood why Jenny and I were the perfect fit to write this book together. You see, Walking in Humble Spirit is about everyday people like you and me. It’s about what is there in each of us. It’s also about what surrounds each of us. All these things that are there though we don’t sense them because we’ve forgotten how to look.
And that’s where my contribution really came in.
I began to realize that what Jenny has been living all her life could be explained in very down-to-earth terms. Terms that we could all relate to, no matter how far we had wandered from the truth. It was all there, as plain as the proverbial noses on our faces. We just had to focus in the right direction.
So I set about to explain how this is the case, and how science and human progress have even proved it while, ironically, trying to avoid such concepts. The path to personal enlightenment, I realized, began with quashing our egos. Seeing ourselves as special only in our unique place in space and time, yet no more special than specks of dust in the cosmos when viewed in the larger context. Hence, the meaning of Jenny’s oft-repeated phrase, “humble spirit.” It all made perfect sense.
Recently, I saw the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise. Overall, I thought it was one of the best imstallments, but one particular scene caught my attention. It was the scene where Luke Skywalker explains to Rey what the force really is. He is quick to point out that it’s not a religion; rather, it’s a power, an energy that connects all things and constantly seeks balance. Watching this scene, I realized that Luke was describing the same energy and balance that our real universe is based upon, and that we humans all participate in whether we know it or not.
I also realized what George Lucas has been trying to tell us for forty years: it’s ego that makes us avoid the truth. Ego turns us to the “dark side,” you might say. It’s the blinding agent that causes us never to find true peace and comfort, no matter how rich, famous, popular, or powerful we become. It’s such a simple lesson, yet one we sadly ignore every day.
Jenny Lee talks about being humble. Walking through life with a humble attitude and a humble approach. Allowing Spirit to serve as companion and sometimes guide, as needed and as warranted. Walking In Humble Spirit is like that first lesson Luke imparts on Rey. It doesn’t answer everything, but it’s a huge start in the right direction.
I hope every reader will find the message of Walking In Humble Spirit as exciting and hopeful, and that they will come to know their own place in the universe.
