I've always battled for the right to be listened to, heard, understood.

I grew up around a voice a lot louder than mine and I kept quiet for a very long time. The frustration would build up until it violently erupted, and I'd yell all my frustrations and anger at once. This usually didn't end well. 

Over the years, I found that when you don't follow your path, design your day, or tell your own story, someone will do it for you.

Maybe this was one of the reasons I stopped believing in God and the Catholic Church as a teenager. Maybe I had enough people on earth running my life without celestial deities getting in on the action too.

But when I moved to Los Angeles many years later, God was everywhere I turned. My roommate Suzanna had a strong Baptist faith and wanted to take me to church. My landlady’s Pentecostal sister had just been shunned by her boyfriend because she didn't speak in tongues.

And on Saturday September 21, 2013, it seems God was keeping an eye on me. 

I'm 3 weeks into a 90 day stay as I try to get my work visa to move to Los Angeles permanently. I've been hustling non-stop to get what I need – a lawyer, job offers, tons of paperwork, and I decide to take a day off and enjoy the city in my Nissan rental. 

First to the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills for the premiere of a documentary about an Afghani-American family reuniting after being separated since 9/11. A stunning film with an engaging Q&A with the filmmakers.

From there I zip across town to a Shakespeare reading at Echo Park Lake... but my roommate neglected to tell me I'd be taking part, not just watching! I played along though, and they loved this shy and grouchy Irish guy wearing flower crowns and putting on accents for it. Little did I know that six months later I'd be moving into an apartment just a few blocks from the park with a wonderful woman I met that day. 

Then dinner with a friend and I zipped back up the 5 to my suburban house in Sun Valley. I dive into the garden pool and watch the palm trees sway as the sun sets behind them. This is the life. 

I felt so good that though I was exhausted, I wanted more. There was a light show on at Santa Monica Beach. A quick shower and I'm rolling down the 405 which has been injected with a fizz of Saturday night crazy.

The crash happened very slowly, then very quickly. I can remember from numerous bike falls as a kid, that the drop to the ground takes an age, then the painful impact happens all at once. 

I was a good distance back from the car in front. We were all whipping along, and I was rocking to some Doors, fully dropping into the LA vibe. 

Up ahead a metallic crunch. Then one set of red lights disappear. Then another. Where did they go?

As a set of white lights spin around towards me, I get my answer. Three cars are spinning across the busy freeway. I slow but can't tell which way I should steer as this metal machine spins around in the dark in front of me. 

Too late I see it spin towards my hood. I brace the wheel with both hands, jam the brakes, and wait for impact. 

It came hard. Then I waited for the inevitable rear impact. Tires screeched. But no second shunt. 

Marooned in the middle lane, car crippled and not knowing what to do, I stepped onto the freeway and took the abuse of the drivers who didn't want their nights ruined by my destroyed car. How inconsiderate of me. 

The CHP patrol car had to ram my crippled car off the road. The ambulances up ahead suggested others had got it much worse than me. 

As I waited for the recovery truck in the shoulder, still in shock, I saw a blue light towering over the white and red streaks of headlights.

It was a cross, twenty feet tall, glowing brightly in the night.

I was the only one watching it. It seemed like it was there just for me. 

As I rode home in the recovery truck, I wondered what it meant. I always think there's a hidden meaning or lesson to be learned in moments like this. 

That night I had tried to do too much. I didn't know when to quit. I had had a great day, but I wanted more. I got greedy. Or did I?

Maybe I just wanted to continue writing my story that night, one that I had worked so hard to start writing for myself. 

Maybe God knew that, and he helped me stop just short of the ultimate sacrifice the cross represented: crossing over from this life, with no more story to be told.



An infinite number of moments and incidents led to me stopping just in time. 

I had been given more time to tell my story in LA. And I wasn't going to waste it. 

Tomorrow: How I tried to drown my own story in red wine.