Bill Paradise Bio
Bill grew up in Detroit, served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and has a master’s degree from Syracuse University. With his wife Bernie he moved from Washington, DC to Indianapolis in 1972 and has been an active member of St. Thomas Aquinas parish ever since. They have three adult children and four grandchildren. Bill spent most of his career in health insurance sales and marketing, retiring from Golden Rule Insurance / United Healthcare in 2006.
Bill’s spiritual light “clicked on” in 1975 when he was asked by a friend to join a small group of men discussing their faith on Saturday mornings. Reluctantly he showed up, joining another Catholic, two Episcopalians, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, and a guy with no church at all, but who was absolutely alive with the love of God. Though he had been a Catholic all his life and had spent time in a seminary after high school, the group experience with these men is what really awakened Bill’s faith.
Having always enjoyed writing, and considering it one of his natural gifts from the Lord, Bill was moved in 1996 to write a book about helping people wake up to their spiritual reality. Fourteen years later the result was You and God. (Bill says he’s a very slow reader and a ridiculously slow writer.)
Coming from an unknown, self-publishing author, You and God failed to make the New York Times bestseller list. However, it did find a particularly gratifying niche – inmates at the Indiana Women’s Prison. Since 2012 Bill has had multiple discussion sessions on You and God with different groups of prisoners. “I give credit to the Women’s Prison for letting me do this,” says Bill. He goes on to say, “Some of the inmates have a deep spiritual life already, but they like the fresh content of the book. Others have never had God in their lives, and they too really get into it. Some even say the book has set a course for their future lives.”
In 2013 Bill began work on what tuned out to be Cancer, You and God, published just this January. Again he felt he was moved to take on this project. Cancer obviously brings with it severe physical challenges, but it also poses major spiritual, mental and emotional hardships on patients and loved ones alike. Presenting 21 brief stories of people variously impacted by cancer, plus 51 short, specific topics, the book focuses on helping the reader deal with those hardships. God is present in each story and in most of the topics.
Bill wants to get the multiple messages found in Cancer, You and God out to as many people as possible.Reactions so far have been very positive. A nurse who is battling pancreatic cancer says of all the books people have given her or recommended, this one is by far the most helpful. Billfeels especially blessed that Colts Head Coach Chuck Pagano, a cancer survivor, wrote an endorsement for the back cover.