one

 Four years old, and he could sing the blues like nobody's business.  His mom drove the 1972 silver Buick Electra with black vinyl quarter top across the 27 miles of the Causeway-a bridge across the brackish Lake Pontchartrain-from Mandeville to New Orleans, the Crescent City.  The Big Easy.  They were on their way to the Children's Hospital of New Orleans for an appointment with cardiologist Dr. John Oschner to setup little man's pending open heart surgery to correct a ventricular septal defect.

Everyone told him that Jesus took his Daddy, who was recently killed in an under-reported explosion on an offshore oil rig (June 15, 1974) that killed seven others, as well.  And little man was angry.  Very angry.  One of his aunts tearfully watched, after telling him his daddy wasn't coming home because Jesus took him to heaven, as the boy ran outside the house and around the yard screaming at the sky, "Jesuuuus!  You give my Daddy back!" with a raised little fist.  He couldn't help but be angry.  If Jesus was love, why would He take little man's dad?  Fact is, Jesus didn't take him.  The explosion did, resulting from a string of careless acts.  His dad was just trying to find a quiet spot away from the smoking and dirty jokes to enjoy his lunch.  He was blown far from the rig, and was the last one to be found, three days later, and identified by his older brother, David Crawford.

Standing up in the front seat of that squeaky clean and smooth running Elektra 225, the little man begged his mom to drive off that bridge spanning the Pontchartrain so he could die and go to his Dad in heaven.  Heavy, man.  That was the simple answer to his blues, from what he'd been taught in Sunday School. The blues. The irony was lost in that car crossing the Causeway to New Orleans.  The blues.

Later, the crisis of identity was an aftershock of the that explosion in June, 1974.  His teens were a blur. Nothing felt real or right.  He couldn't let go, he couldn't move on.  It was not really noticeable, except for the underlying fuming anger, and he couldn't even put it in words.  But it was there-under the surface.  It didn't destroy him, but it was a major force in the shaping of the man he would become.  Its taken 46 years, but he's finally beginning to put it in its place.  Two words:  regret and relish.

Later that year, just a few weeks later, little man laid on a table with every moveable part of his body strapped down as the surgical staff poked, cut, inserted, and sewed up, taking him through all the hell of pre and post operation of open heart surgery...  in 1974...  Imagine the Metallica video "One."  You know, the one where the guy is in excruciating torment and he's trying to scream, but can't.  Then it was all over, and little man thought life might be getting back to some kind of normalcy, but, nope!  There were new horrors awaiting him...  A lot of anger.  A lot of anger.

Anger has been an overriding kind of staple emotion-for me.  I was that little man.  Even when I could find those moments of peace with myself, others, and God, the anger was just hiding out for a while.  Like a dog, a bad dog chained in the backyard with "Beware of dog" signs, that was my attempt to keep it under wraps, to help me hold it all back from opening up all the way. Because I liked who was in my life at the moment and my situation, I knew if that dog ever broke loose it would be my disaster.  Hurt feelings, disillusionment, and smashed relationships lay in that dog's wake, the bad dog.  

Miracles began to happen travelling with a cousin of mine.  He had been through his own version of hell on earth dealing with a disease that left him angry and despondent.  After many surgeries and many years hating the life he found himself living, he felt the call of God, and surrendered all the hurt and anger to Him.  We traveled and sang together in churches, camps, and conventions, and he preached about "when there is no miracle, He's still God!"  It affected me in such a way that I had to relinquish my iron grasp on my life and surrender to the fact that, though I could not understand the "why" of my life, God saw it all from start to finish, and always had His hand in it.  

The passion to bring Christ's love and redemption to people with disabilities flung me onto a road that brought me to Wisconsin, to my lovely, steadfast wife and her stalwart family, to ministry and music and inner-city emergency work, and to grappling with myself and all the religious claws that raked my psyche and soul.  God knew it all would go down as it has.  He was never surprised at my rage, my hurt, my utter fear and weakness, or my brokenness.  He had planned it, and has a plan for it all.

I'm still angry, just about other things.  I still wrestle with my God, as Jacob did and came out on the other side with a new name and a new understanding.  Most days, I still feel like its me against the world.  But in the back of my heart, my broken, dysfunctional heart, I know there was One who knew and felt all the hurt, anger, and pain of a degenerate, fallen race and He never sinned.  He knows my name.  He knows who I really am, because I was HIS idea from the start!  And I can cry my tears and sing my blues to Him and know He cries and sings with me.  Then, He touches my heart, and makes all things new!