Destined for Salvation?

[Bob Crowley]

I've been (slowly) reading a book by the late Australian journalist Michael Willesee, "A Sceptic's Search for Meaning". When I've finished I'll then read "My Human Heart" by Ron Tesoriero. The two books are linked in that the two authors were friends and the evidence that ultimately led to Michael Willesee's conversion was initally proffered by Ron Tesoriero.

But as I read Willesee's book I had this sense that he was "destined for salvation" to use a hackneyed term.

He died in 2019 after a bout with cancer. But in his journalistic heyday some incidents stood out.

He was covering the misfortunes of the Dinka people in South Sudan (around 1994 if my calculations are correct). He was waiting with others for a plane and wrote...

".... But as we sat there, I was suddenly hit with a profound conviction that the plane was going to crash".

Sure enough the plane crashed, but they all survived.

He initially put it down to luck, but ...

"... I thought of the premonition... What else could I call that feeling I had on the tarmac: I'd never had such a feeling before. It was strong: it was vivid: I had believed it, and the plane had crashed."

Years earlier he'd been covering the Vietnam War. He had been in an American propaganda meeting and got bored with it. He decide to go for a walk

"... when a man in black pyjamas jumped out about forty metres in front of me, pointing his AK47 rifle at me and motioned me into the jungle.

I froze..."

In the end he somehow managed to just walk off and made his way back to ...

"... the tent where the speeches were still droning on.... I'd just gone within a whisker of losing my life, but I said nothing."

He should have been killed. On another occasion he went for a walk "... in a live minefield. I was saved by some Marines who called out to me from a foxhole and had me turn around and walk back - very slowly - retracing my barely discernible footprints. ... I said to one of the Marines who'd just saved me , 'We've been sent here because you guys have cleaned this area of Viet Cong.'

'Is that right?' one of them responded. 'We killed seven Charlies in this field last night.'..."

Michael Willesee's story reminds me of John Newton who wrote "Amazing Grace". He had a lot of close shaves as well.

It was a bit more light hearted towards the end of the book.

"One of the most surprising aspects of Jesus joining us just like another one of the guys was how simple and practical he could be .....In March 2000, we were in Israel preparing for a three day visit by Pope John Paul II - the second ever papal visit to the holy land after Pope Paul VI spent a single day there in 1964 ...."

Because of the expected crowds, accommodation was impossible to find.

"... We were sitting around with maps and guides, exhausting all the possibilities in the ancient city.

After a lot of time wasted, Jesus made his presence known to Katya (Rivas - a Colombian mystic who was accompanying them).

'"Why do you have to stay in Jerusalem?' He asked her. 'Just move a little further out of town. You'll get accommodation and catch the bus in every day.'

All of us kind of looked at each other.

Why didn't we think of that?