Mike Willesee - A Sceptics Search for Meaning

About A Sceptics Search for Meaning

Is there life after death?

Does God exist?

How do you explain miracles?

In a career spanning fifty years and thousands of stories, legendary Australian journalist Mike Willesee dared to pose the big questions as part of his ongoing quest for meaning.

Born into the Catholic faith, with early ambitions to be a priest, he tried to escape his spiritual destiny by pursuing a path as an investigative journalist. But fate kept catching up, as A Sceptics Search for Meaning reveals.

He had a premonition his plane was going to crash, moments before it did.

He found himself the neighbour of one of Australias most passionate investigators of mystical phenomena, who convinced Mike to join him in his quest.

Among many such adventures, Mike flew to Colombia to interview Katya Rivas, dubbed Gods secretary. He watched as the barely literate woman who claimed never to have read the Bible wrote page after page of perfect theology in multiple languages. He also sat by her bed as blood started to ooze from her brow, her hands and her feet - the telltale signs of stigmata.

Written in his final year as Mike fought a losing battle with cancer, A Sceptics Search for Meaning is a moving and intriguing tale of one mans attempt to make sense of the profound mysteries of faith, perfect for fans of Proof of Heaven .

Contents

Foreword

Edited extract from the eulogy for Mike Willesee by Father Mark Withoos

Why would a man with Mike Willesees stellar career and reputation as one of Australias best journalists dedicate so much of his final years to telling the world about God? And why would he keep doing it, when greeted only with criticism and disbelief?

Lets listen to what Mike himself said in his last interview:

I think God and religion are just so politically incorrect at the moment. Nobody wants to know. You can be laughed at just for saying you believe in God... The work Im doing now has been difficult. Im constantly reminded that most journalists would say this is ridiculous. But Ive stuck with this story and Im making progress. It shows the truth of God in the Eucharist. The truth that God is alive in our world and that His hand moves.

The truth that God is alive in our world and that His hand moves.

Mike Willesee saw telling this story to a sceptical world as the most important work he had done. It wasnt about convincing everyone with Mike it was always about getting to the bottom of things.

Kerry OBrien said that Mike had an instinct for asking the right question, even if it seemed strange. The question he ultimately came to ask remains the right question, perhaps the best and most fundamental question, for all of us: What is this all about?

In Mikes own words: This story is the only one that matters because its the biggest question that we ask ourselves or deny ourselves but know its there somewhere. And that is, Whats it all about? Why are we here?

Its a basic question and it is the question that Mike, no longer with us, still wants to ask you.

Mikes work is still not complete. He began with his Memoirs what a cracking read they were! After reading the book, I spoke to Mike and said, I loved the book, Mike, youre a great storyteller. But there were quite a few expletives in there! I was having a dig at him.

And he responded, Ah, yes, Father, but thats my secular life before God got hold of me. My next book will be the real book my road to Damascus.

Cue characteristic Mike Willesee meaningful pause...

Part One

A Boy and his God

One

Born into the Light

1942. My father knelt before the altar and, with me in his hands, stretched out his arms so the shard of light streaming through the window of the hospital chapel fell upon me. It was an offering to God.

I give my son to you, he said. Michael is yours for eternity.

There was only silence in the chapel.

But first, my father pleaded, give him back to me.

I was a newborn but could not hold down any milk. I was skeletal and starving. Mum and Dad had been told to prepare themselves for the worst. Every night, my parents feared I wouldnt make the dawn. In the mornings, when I was still there, Mum fed me incessantly, praying some of the milk might stay down. On this went for almost a week, with my condition worsening and my parents distress mounting.

Just when all seemed lost, a new man on the ward an English doctor quietly approached them.

I have heard about your son and I have a particular interest. There is a theory Ive been working on and if you allow me to try it on your little boy, then I believe I may be able to save him.

Do it, was Dads instant reply.

The surgery to open a narrowed valve from my stomach to the small intestine was successful. Later that same week, the English doctor who had saved my life left Perth aboard a ship and returned to England, passing through my parents life and mine in a most fortunate piece of timing.

I didnt hear this story of my dads deal with God in full until early 2018, a few months after my autobiography, Memoirs , was published. It was told to me then by a mutual friend of my fathers and mine, Charles Morton, a lawyer from The Rock, near Wagga Wagga. I was shocked.

Trying to visualise my father in that scene in the hospital chapel was difficult. All his life we saw only glimpses of his own personal emotions. In repressing uncomfortable memories, my father was a master. In being expressive about his personal feelings, he was a miser.

Charles, I said. This story is so hard for me to believe.

Mike, your father was crying as he told it to me, replied Charles.

Crying was something else my father never did. Despite my ignorance of the deal, it must have seemed to Dad that God had accepted his offer. I faced death three more times as a youngster when suffering from scarlet fever as a toddler, again at three years of age when I fell into a fire, and then when I got hit by a car that put a hole in the back of my skull at the age of about eight. Each time I survived.

Whenever death drew me in close to its darkness, I found my way back into the light.

Two

Knowing Right from Wrong

My favourite place for family holidays as a kid was Safety Bay.

It was a loose collection of ramshackle shacks set into the dunes and on the headlands just south of Perth. Dad told me the shacks were illegal, that people hadnt sought council approval, theyd just stuck struts in the sand and set up these primitive holiday homes out of old tin and stray lumber. A compound of itinerant families moved in every summer and during school breaks. Technically it was squatting, but if you built one you could rent it out and get a few bob for it and everyone was happy.

Me most of all. Safety Bay was the most magical place in the world to me. The water was crystal clear and full of darting, shimmering fish. The sun was always shining, and birds carolled and squawked from the trees. People at Safety Bay always smiled and laughed. Families had fun and shared what they had.

Dad was a postal worker and union organiser. He had his sights set on a career in politics, but back then we were as staunchly working class as the rest of the families there. Mum was busy with three kids under the age of seven, from Colleen, the eldest, down to Terry, three, the youngest, with me in the middle. The fourth, Geraldine, was probably on the way, while Don and Peter were still to come. But while Mum might have been a bit tied down with all that, I was six years old and at Safety Bay, I could do anything I wanted. It was total freedom.