CI

FOR WITH GOD NOTHING SHALL BE IMPOSSIBLE

LUKE 1:37

DESTINY KNIGHT-STORM

(INTERVIEW WITH CRYSTAL MOORE PART 2)

“So tell me what Kip said about not going to the Playboy mansion,” I petitioned Crystal. “I’m ashamed to admit that there was a point in my life that I pathetically dreamed of being a Playboy Playmate.”

Crystal smiled sympathetically and pulled at a strand of auburn hair as she replied, “It was after Kip’s wife died that his band Mad Mamba achieved superstardom. He was an ambivert  who was uncomfortable with fame even before his wife’s death. Afterward he became an omnivert, but that wasn’t the reason he declined an invitation to one of the most famous carnal playgrounds on the planet.

“In the biographical program I told you about, his bandmates had been talking about post-concert parties and groupies, and Kip’s absence from these scenes of debauchery. Keep in mind that the media painted a picture of Kip as an out of control wild man who they expected to join the twenty-seven club of dead rock stars. It was true that Kip struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, but he often indulged in solitude with just a couple close friends.

“Then one of his bandmates declared that Kip Maxwell was probably the only lead singer in rock and roll history that could count on one hand how many women he had been, um, intimate with. Then he qualified it by saying that he personally had only ever seen Kip with Melanie, his dear departed wife. After that he told the viewers that Kip even flatly declined a visit to the infamous Playboy mansion.

“That’s when the program cut to Kip. Here, I’ll show you exactly what he said.”

Crystal picked up her phone and pulled up a YouTube video. I had only vaguely known what Kip looked like. I mentally pictured him with long, shaggy, jet black hair. I had thought of him looking like a younger version of somebody from the band Motley Crue. But in this video, he had shaggy short brown hair. With his tattoos and a piercing in both his lip and eyebrow, he looked like a feral version of Ashton Kutcher.

“When the woman you love wakes up screaming from a nightmare,” Kip said from the phone screen. “Because of the abuse she received as a mere child. Then as you hold her quivering body and listen to her whimpering until the flashback fades away. I don’t know. After experiencing that numerous times throughout our relationship, I have no desire to go to a place where women are viewed as adult playthings. I don’t care if they are consenting. You have to ask yourself why are they there? Money? Fame? All are frivolous pursuits if you ask me. Yet so many of us sell our souls for something, don’t we?”

The video went still, and I noticed the playing time was less than two minutes, yet it had over twelve million views. I picked up my own phone and found Mad Mamba’s videos on YouTube. A half dozen had over one hundred million views. No question that Kip Maxwell was, or at least had been, a superstar. But I’m far from an expert at gaging fame, even though I’ve experienced minor celebrity myself.

“So,” I began, then blew out a breath, and then asked cautiously. “That was the beginning of what? Falling in love with him?”

“Oh heavens no!” she said, and then chuckled as she pinched her thumb and index finger together. “Maybe a little. However, I did become, for lack of a better word, obsessed with his story. I watched all of his band’s music videos several times. I poured over his song lyrics. He rarely did interviews, but I watched everyone I could find.”

She smiled, chuckled, and shook her head.

“So, what did you conclude from all of you investigations?” I asked.

“I found it fascinating that here you had a lost soul with drug problems and self-destructive, maybe even suicidal, tendencies. Yet millions of fans looked to him for guidance. They listened to his songs for comfort, or at least to be moved in some special way.”

“I have to admit,” I said. “I’m not overly familiar with his music. There was one song from his early stuff I liked to use when I was an exotic dancer. But I never examined his lyrics. Is there something profound?”

“Well, they are deep and dark and sad. But then he always seems to end with a glimmer of hope. There was one example that he actually told me he wrote when he was in his most desperate and depressed state. I’m paraphrasing, but it went something like this: ‘As I lie, here in bed, all alone, I can’t mend. But I feel, tomorrow will be okay.’ So do you see from this little example what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a slight croak as I was moved by the emotional pain and struggle the singer was dealing with. “Tell me about when you two met.”

“It was about a week before our two cousins were to be married,” Crystal began. “The Maxwell family was from the Milwaukee area. My family was from the Madison area. I hadn’t had a vacation in over a year, so I had taken two weeks off at the insistence of my partner at our animal hospital. One week was before the wedding, and one was after.

“In the back of my mind, I was uneasy about the wedding and being a bridesmaid paired with Kip. But I’ve never really been a worrier, so I guess you could say I was waiting until the Friday rehearsal to experience some nerves.

“But my cousin called me that Monday and asked me if I could pick up Kip at the airport? She said that she and her fiancée were supposed to pick him up at the Madison airport, but they had a flat tire and were still in Chicago. Kip’s plane was due if twenty minutes. I experienced a jolt of nerves up my spine that almost gave me whiplash. But twenty minutes notice didn’t give me much time to dwell on it.

“Kip wasn’t quite what I was expecting. In all the interviews I saw of him, he appeared tired, withdrawn, and even stoned. The interviewers always seemed to have to pry answers from him. So when I picked him, I expected him to be quiet and aloof. I definitely wasn’t going to play the star struck fan. If he was remote and cold, I determined to be remote and cold. Then I didn’t even recognize him at first.

“He was sporting a beard, and his hair was short and spiked. Almost a crew cut. Also, his facial piercings were removed, and his tattoos were covered with a long sleeved Under Armor shirt. He actually smiled and thanked me for picking him up. Then he proceeded to ask me all about myself. He was fascinated with my profession and engaged me in a lot of intelligent questions. It turned out he was rather knowledgeable about animals.

“The first thing he offered about himself was riding horses on his grandparents acreage when he was a boy. I told him I had a couple horses, and since it was several days until the wedding, I heard myself invite him to ride.”

She smiled sentimentally and shook her head. I asked, “Did he accept?”

“He did,” she replied. “As a matter of fact, we went riding the very next morning. Afterward I made us lunch, and we ended up talking the afternoon away. The strange thing is, neither of us are what you would call conversationalists. But we really hit it off, we really clicked.”

“Did you click romantically, or just as friends,” I asked with a wolfish grin.

“As friends,” she replied quickly, but then winked. “For the time being, anyway.”

It was then that I noticed a thin gold band on her left ring finger. I guess I shouldn’t try to become a detective any time soon. I was going to ask her if they were married, but she spoke first.

“At the end of the day, he thanked me for treating him like a normal person,” Crystal told me. “I didn’t really understand what he meant. But then during the rest of the week, we were hanging with our cousins, and other friends and relatives. It was surprising to me how much Kip was fawned over. Even some of his own relatives were asking for selfies and autographs, and such.

“At one point, Kip asked me to go for a walk with him. When we were alone, he kind of laughed and said, ‘See what I mean when I told you that you had treated me like a normal person.’

“After that, we really started to have deep, spiritual conversations. He was in such a dark place. I had been there myself, because of my sister. I too had spent several years angry with God, and even stopped going to church. But then it began to dawn on me, that Jesus is the only hope in this broken world, with all of its broken people. I ended up repenting and recommitting myself to the Lord, not even a year before I met Kip.

“At times I felt like a hypocrite being an apologist for God as Kip poured his heart out about his pain and lack of faith. But I felt like he needed a verbal kick in the behind. He had gotten used to people coddling him.”

“So was he in a bad place with drug and alcohol addiction?” I asked.

“Well,” she said and then sighed. “He had gone through rehab after his band had broken up and had gotten clean from opiate addiction. But he still drank quite a bit and smoked cigarettes pretty heavily.

“Did it make him mean at all, or belligerent?” I asked.

“No, not mean or belligerent, but I do think it enhanced his already melancholy nature.”

“It’s a slippery slope,” I said. “I know from firsthand experience. You feel good for a while, sometimes really good, but what goes up, must come down.”

“That’s so true,” Crystal agreed, and then smiled without humor. “But he and I shared a moment, a look with each other, that he said later made him give up drinking and smoking forever.”

“Is that right? What happened?”

“There were about twenty of us at a bonfire, two nights before the wedding. Kip was singing songs for us with an acoustic guitar. He was even more talented and gifted than I realized. If somebody requested a song, more often than not he was able to sing it. Most of the songs were from an earlier era, but he pulled it off.

“One such song was ‘Sundown’ by Gordan Lightfoot. A little while before the actual sundown that led to the bonfire, Kip and I had a conversation about his drinking. Once again, I didn’t coddle him.

“He has such a rich, melodic voice with a wide range. Before he played ‘Sundown’, he did the Lightfoot song about the Edmond Fitzgerald. His rendition was so moving, I was the one that asked for ‘Sundown.’ It was the only request I had made, and I made it because I knew there was a line that might speak to him.

It was the line that went something like this, ‘Sometimes, I think it’s a sin, when I start feeling better when I’m losing again.’ He looked at me, as he sang this part. The way he sang was so moving, and the words so poignant, I couldn’t stop the tears as I stared at him. Our brief, but intense friendship shifted gears after that.”

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES and QUOTES)

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH: THE WALDENSES

Amid the gloom that settled upon the earth during the long period of papal supremacy, the light of truth could not be wholly extinguished. In every age there were witnesses for God.

These people cherished faith in Christ as the only mediator between god and man. They held the Bible as the only rule of life, and they hallowed the true Sabbath. How much the world owes to these people, posterity will never know.

Of those who resisted the encroachments of the papal power, the Waldenses stood foremost.

The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures.

They declared the Church of Rome to be the apostate Babylon, and at the peril of their lives they stood up to resist her corruptions.

Behind the lofty bulwarks of the mountains—in all ages a refuge of the persecuted and oppressed—the Waldenses found a hiding place. Here the light of truth was kept burning amid the darkness of the Middle Ages.

Pure, simple, and fervent was the piety of these followers of Christ. The principles of truth they valued above houses, lands, friends, kindred, and even life itself.

Copies of the Bible were rare; therefore its precious words were committed to memory.

They were instructed from childhood to endure hardness, and to think and act for themselves.

The were taught that God designs life to be a discipline.

The Waldenses sacrificed worldly prosperity for the truth’s sake.

They held the Bible to be the only supreme, infallible authority. Their pastors, unlike the lordly priests of Rome, followed the example of their Master, who “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”

The spirit of Christ is a missionary spirit.

The Bible is the medium of communication between God and mankind.

As the mine has rich veins of gold and silver hidden beneath the surface, so that all must dig who would discover its precious stores, so the Holy Scriptures have treasures of truth that are revealed only to the earnest, humble, prayerful seeker.

The same spirit that crucified Christ and slew the apostles, the same that moved the bloodthirsty Nero against the faithful in his day, was at work to rid the earth of those who were beloved of God.

“Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty!” 2 Corinthians 3:17

I may come to Jesus just as I am, sinful and unholy, and He will not spurn the penitential prayer. “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” Mine, even mine, may be forgiven!