“I GOT NOTHING”
Mick stood in the dark on a small platform behind the huge wall of speakers, his guitar slung across his bare chest, waiting for the exact moment for the concert to begin. The grand tones of Wagner’s Thus Spake Zarathustra massaged the audience, making them hungry for their music. Mick heard the Wagner rise to a high emotional peak and finish with a massive fanfare of trumpets. He fingered the first chord with his left hand, turned the volume of his electric guitar all the way up, and crouched like a cat ready to spring.
Mick heard his sound engineer shout “Now!” into his ear monitor. In an instant of time which stretched out like a slow-motion dream, he launched himself into the air toward the stage as a wall of theatrical explosions erupted across the front of the platform. Every spotlight in the huge stage rig came on at the same time and a giant screen behind the band came alive with intense colors like a living tie-dye shirt. As Mick hung in the air, mimicking a basketball player making a jump shot, he saw the bass player flying toward him from behind the speaker stack on the far side of the stage. As his feet touched down, the drummer smashed, the bassist thumped, and the lead singer rose wailing out of the floor in a cloud of smoke. Mick slapped a power chord and a wall of sound from his towering stack of amplifiers impacted his body like a concussion grenade. At the same instant the crowd screamed but Mick could neither see nor hear them in the blinding lights and the roar of sound.
All in all, a good start. For a brief moment the magic was back for Mick. His emotions soared as he drank in the hero worship of the crowd. Here he was, a working class kid from London’s East End, and now a rock star famous and wealthy beyond his most fantastic dreams! Who would have imagined that Mr. Pimples, as the teens called him at school, would be the center of attention at Covent Garden in the center city of London--just a few miles from where he grew up? He soaked up all the pleasure he could hold in a moment of time--but it was useless. As always happened now his satisfaction drained rapidly away through the wooden platform, through the concrete floor, down through layers of earth and stone, and through the earth’s basalt crust to be consumed in the molten lava core of the planet.
He and his wife had had a vicious confrontation just before the concert. Christine had finally learned from a stage hand the uncountable number of sexual encounters Mick had with fans and hangers-on. She had blasted him in front of the whole band and crew: “I’m leaving you! I’m taking Justin, I’m going back to Richmond and don’t you dare show your face there ever again!” Richmond, once the home of kings, today the home of the royalty of rock music, was now the home of another broken family. Christine had withstood Mick’s growing drug abuse, the long times apart when on tour, and even rumors of Mick’s wandering sexuality, but the latest revelation was beyond her ability to bear. Her grief was inconsolable and her torrent of rage was unstoppable. What could Mick say? Words failed him. She was right to divorce him.
Mick forced himself to look happy as he slashed through the guitar riffs of their hit song “Bang It.” He had become fairly good at acting the part of the man on top of the world even as he threw the best part of that world into the volcano of his selfish desire to be consumed like a burning sacrifice.
The song was simple enough to allow Mick to play and think at the same time. At first he was angry with Christine, reasoning the way all selfish people do: “I’m the guitar god! Every good thing she has is because of me! She was nothing--just a street kid when I met her, and now she’s rich and famous.” But all the foolish self-talk was like spitting into a hurricane which was stripping the false front off his life. His anger was followed by a grief which hollowed out his heart as if a mortician had already begun preparing him for burial.
“Bang It” ended with the usual crescendo of cymbals, kick drum, and musical destruction. He was tempted to throw down his guitar and stalk off but he knew that those tantrums were part of what was dying in his heart. He stood motionless in the face of a tidal wave of applause, fake smile plastering over his emptiness. He had become everything he had dreamed and more. Every man in that concert hall wanted to be him, but he no longer wanted to be himself. None of it mattered anymore, and not even he could hear himself say: “I got nothing.”
CHRISTINE’S AIR SUPPLY
Christine sank into the plush velvet armchair in her sumptuously decorated drawing room, clutching a scrap of paper, and wishing she could just keep sinking down into oblivion. She had been standing in the wings at her husband Mick’s sound check for his rock band’s latest sold-out concert at Covent Garden in London. As usual, she was chatting people up and enjoying the bright glow of being married to a star. It was intoxicating for a girl who came from nothing. Christine got a lot of “Yes, ma’am” and “Would you like some tea, ma’am?” and “Can I get you a chair, ma’am?”
It was just such a chat with a stage hand which had blown her world apart. “Wouldn’t like to say, ma’am, but you know yer Mick’s not doin’ right by ya. I got no reason to say--nuthin’ to gain, mind you--but you got to protect yourself. He’s doin’ you wrong...had a different woman at every stop on the tour...sorry to say, ma’am.”
The words burned like acid through Christine’s heart, all the more devastating because she already knew they were true. She didn’t even have to ask Mick. She had seen it all--the hinky behavior, the half-answers to questions about where he had been and with whom, and the smell of other women on his clothes. All her growing fears had burst out in a rage. She had confronted Mick in front of the whole band and crew, screaming in his face and beating her petite hands against his tattooed chest. Then she had taken their son, Justin, and run out. A friend of the band, an actress, had caught her at the door. “Take this,” she had said, and pressed a scrap of paper into Christine’s hand.
Colored light filtered through a stained-glass window and played on the berber carpet. As Christine sat drained of all desire to go on living amidst the finest possessions money could buy, she could not explain why her heart had been brought so low. Of course she had a right to feel betrayed, deflated, angry, and grieved all at the same time. But she was lower even than that. It was as if the core of her being--her very personhood--had been gutted like an animal being prepared for butchering.
She had gone too far with Mick. Not just the sex they had before marriage and the wild partying which was a staple of their relationship. Christine had hung her whole reality on Mick. It was so easy to do! She had grown up in a working class family with a mother who kept saying Christine was a “mistake” and a father who was more married to his cigarettes and whisky than her mother. Then Mick had come along with his swagger and his confidence. It was as if she had been absorbed into him--and it had felt like the best thing that ever happened to her! The attention and what seemed like love at the time became the very air she breathed, her very source of life. That’s why she had hung on so long in spite of the evidence she could not deny--Mick’s love was mostly for himself, and Christine was a human accessory to his insatiable hunger for self-gratification.
She fingered the scrap of paper from Susan. While the two women were not close, Christine knew she and Susan had come from the same kind of background. But something had happened to Susan which could be seen even from a distance. The hungry look had gone from Susan’s eyes. She seemed to be standing on her own two feet instead of hanging on one boyfriend after another. “It’s a God thing,” Susan had said, which meant nothing at the time.
But now things were different. Mick was gone and with his departure Christine’s air supply had been cut off. “Never again!” Christine screamed in the quiet of her shattered home. Never again would she allow herself to be absorbed into someone else, never again would she allow the hope of her life to rest on an unshaven face, a gentle touch, and a softly spoken word.
Christine looked at the scrap of paper which had been torn from the stage manager’s production book. The words, hastily written, were too blurry to be read through her tear-filled eyes. Why had she hung on to it? Christine had kept it in her hand on the drive all the way back to Richmond.
Though all the windows were shut fast against the damp English air, Christine suddenly felt a soft breeze across her skin. She took a breath and was surprised by the fresh scent of a garden in spring with leaves budding, grass greening, and crocuses popping their heads above the damp earth. She felt strangely invigorated by this impossible breath of fresh air. Her eyes cleared and the writing on the scrap of paper came into focus: “Breakfast meeting sponsored by Genesis Arts Trust with speaker Nigel Goodwin on the subject Jesus Christ, Patron of the Arts and Your Best Friend. Come with me! --Susan.” Christine felt an inner compulsion which was as sweet as it was powerful. “I’m coming!” she said to no one in particular.
JUSTIN TELLS HIS MOMMY
June stood outside the elaborate carved mahogany door of the drawing room, listening to intermittent sobs and wondering what to do. She was only a nanny--not really a family member--how could she interfere? Her boss, Christine Ragsdale, wife of rock star Mick Ragsdale, had zoomed into the garage, hurriedly taken her son Justin to his bedroom upstairs, and then retreated to the drawing room. The door--which was worth more than a year of June’s wages--had slammed with a startling bang. She heard a rough boy-cry from Justin’s room and then the house fell quiet except for the tick-tick of the antique grandfather clock in the hall. “He’s probably playing with his new video game,” June thought. She longed to comfort him like a mother would her own child because Justin, son of full-goose bonzo rockers, had become dear to her.
It was June who did the parenting when Mick and Christine were bombed out of their gourds or flying on the drug of the month. It was June who ran to Justin’s room when he had night terrors. It was June who helped him with homework and made sure he took his medicine when he was sick. She may not have been the real mommy, but she loved the little guy.
That’s why June was frozen in place in the hallway. She was part of the family, but not blood. June cared about Christine, too. When she was first hired June found it easy to judge Christine in her heart, but eventually she realized that for all her furs and Italian designer boots, Christine was a broken thing. The rock and roll lifestyle was eating her alive. June’s quiet condemnation had turned to pity and then to affection.
The change of heart was partly from getting to know Christine better and partly from learning about Mick’s infidelities. They were an open secret about which the two women never spoke, but June’s heart went out to Christine every time she had to endure another of monster Mick’s sexual dalliances. June knew the signs and saw the grief in Christine’s face. More than once June had locked eyes with Christine and given her a knowing, sympathetic look. Christine would look longingly back, drinking in the grace of feminine fellowship, knowing that she knew.
June remained riveted to the oriental carpet outside the lavish room of sorrows wanting to go to Christine but blocked by the invisible barriers of English social convention--like family, but never to be family, unless... As if in a vision, thoughts of another, higher family began to flood June’s mind. She pictured widows being cared for by those who were not blood, but who cared more than most blood relatives would have done. She saw the lonely touched with a comfort beyond the human. June felt her own unfathomably deep connection to a family which stretched beyond this world. She remembered the One who had welcomed her, and the thought of that One shattered her indecision.
June’s feet came unriveted from the floor and she bounded up the steps to Justin’s room. She knocked gently, and called: “Justin, it’s me, June. Are you O.K., poppet?” There was no answer. June twisted the crystal doorknob and gave the door a soft push.
Justin was on his knees leaning on the bed and running his favorite fire truck back and forth on the spread. His face was red with crying and he had a shell-shocked look. June knelt beside him and pulled him close. He collapsed into her warm, expansive safety. She was his big sister, auntie, and angel of God all rolled into one. After a moment, Justin looked up and bawled: “Mum told Dad not to come home--ever again!” The helpless misery of a child was writ large on his face.
June thanked God that there was a family above this broken family. Tears streaked her face as she remembered the day Justin, just a little boy then, had met his heavenly Father by praying a simple prayer of faith in Christ. He needed a Father who would never let him down. June felt prayer bubbling up from within her, and her lips gave voice: “Great Father, we thank you that you will never leave us. Thank you that your love is new every morning toward those who trust in you. Lord, I ask that you reveal your love and mercy to Mum, Dad, and Justin right now. They need you so much. Amen.” Justin prayed his own prayer: “God, please fix my mommy and daddy. Amen.”
Christine did not know that her lowly nanny had led her son to Christ and prayed with him every night. “Sssh, don’t tell Mum!” June had always said to Justin, fearing for her position. Justin let out a long breath, swiveled his round face up to her and asked a question he had repeated almost every night: “Is it time to tell now?” On every previous occasion the answer had been: “Not yet, little one.” This time June, the angel nanny sister auntie, said: “I think it’s time.”
They rose, held hands, and descended the immense staircase together. All of June’s prior hesitation was now gone. At that moment a little boy with bare feet became a messenger for the most high God. They opened the drawing room door and went in.
“I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT”
Sam awoke in the middle of a cold Wisconsin night with an overwhelming sense of concern for people he had never met and knew little about. Can you really say you know anything about a couple you have only seen pictured on the covers of gossip rags in the grocery store? Do the staged television interviews the famous provide actually reveal anything about them or is it entirely acting? Sam did not remember dreaming about Mick and Christine Ragsdale, the virtual duke and duchess of British rock music, but their persons were now deeply pressed on his consciousness. His heart was struck with a sense of their spiritual need in a way he had only previously experienced with family members. Sam switched on the light on the bed stand, put on his slippers, and went down to the den. There would be no sleeping now.
Four thousand miles away, Mick Ragsdale hung crookedly on a bar stool in a no-name pub on a no-name back street of London. Mick had just finished a sold-out concert in a condition of total spiritual emptiness as if his heart had been replaced with the vacuum of space. He had brushed off the groupies and the usual after-concert parties. It was his life, but it all seemed strangely alien as if the little gray men with the huge almond eyes had abducted him to their space ship, replaced his brain with someone else’s, and dropped him back on a street corner in Eastcheap.
Mick hung his head as he drank on the dark end of the bar, making sure his long hair covered his face so he would not be bothered by any so-called fans. In the past Mick had found drinking to be very effective at obliterating sad thoughts and bad feelings--everything, actually, could be pushed to the outer limits of the solar system, out where the gray aliens lived. In fact, Mick often made a game of imagining his bad memories being pushed away by one planet orbit with each drink. By Saturn his mind was mostly cleansed, and by Pluto--his ninth drink--thinking was no longer possible. Let the aliens worry about his problems.
On this night the trick was a spectacular failure. The more Mick drank the more vivid his bad memories became and the more they hurt. Christine walking out on him--that ungrateful tart! Taking his Justin--his son! And the humiliation of Christine dressing him down in front of the whole band and crew! Mick burned with such a helpless shame as he had not felt since he was viciously taunted as a schoolboy with a bad complexion. He felt like he was having a heart attack, not of the body, but of the soul. At that moment he cared nothing for his wealth, nothing for his career, and, in fact, nothing for his life.
Across the deep ocean Sam sat in his recliner and began talking to God: “Father, I don’t know why this is happening, but I feel like I care about Mick and Christine Ragsdale like family. I don’t know what else to do, so I’m going to pray for them. Lord Jesus, you know Mick and Christine completely and I don’t know them at all. Famous people often struggle with looking happy on the outside but being desperate on the inside. They beat themselves up with drugs and bad living. Lord, I have no idea what is going on with this couple, but I sense that they really need you right now. Open their hearts to you. May they meet someone who can explain your good news to them...is it me, Lord? Doesn’t seem likely. At least remind them of truths from your word which they have heard. Lord, you are all that they need. May they see it this very night. In the name of Jesus, amen.” “What a strange thing!” Sam thought as he went back to the bedroom. “I can’t explain it.”
As Sam went back to bed Mick stumbled out the door of the Royal No-Name Pub of Nowhere. Almost too drunk to walk but wanting no assistance he tottered down the dark street. The street lamps threw a wan glow on his sagging face. He had cleverly stopped drinking at Neptune so he could navigate on his own.
And navigate he did to a seedy park where he sat down on a bench. Mick slid sideways till he lay like any bum--former king of the world, now at the bottom of the heap in his own heart and mind. As he lay in the cold his mind sharpened and he remembered a man who came to all his concerts wearing a sandwich board which read: John 3:16. Without telling anyone, Mick had looked it up in the Bible in his hotel room one night.
The words had meant little at the time, but they came floating back to him as solid objects through the mist of his mind: “For God so loved...that whoever believes in Him should not perish...” “That would be me perishing,” Mick mumbled. “God help me...no one else can.” Mick drifted off and at the same time, half-way around the world, Sam turned over and fell asleep.
ENCOUNTER AT CHRISTMAS NICK’S
Christine stood in front of the row of beautiful cut fir trees, breathing the scent of this temporary forest on a vacant lot in the middle of town, and wondering how she was going to stop weeping. She felt the warmth of her son Justin’s little hand and tried to pull herself together, thinking: “Got to make Christmas for Justin!” Christine’s life was, at this moment, a salvage operation to pick up what remained after her marriage to rocker Mick Ragsdale had been sunk like the Titanic. Mick had scuttled the future of their family by piling up one selfish betrayal after the next until the Ragsdale family broke apart under the weight and sank like a stone beneath the waves.
“Can I help you find somethin’, ma’am?” Christmas Nick, the Christmas tree guy, stemmed the tide of Christine’s emotions for a moment. She swallowed her feelings, wiped a tear with the back of her gloved hand, and choked out, “We’ve got some shopping to do. Can’t rush a decision like this!” It was a joke, but this mission gave a welcome relief, just to get out of Grief House, Sorrow Manor, Mansion of the Miseries. Christine now understood why people sometimes abandoned otherwise beautiful homes.
Justin popped the candy cane out of his mouth and tugged on the branch of a crooked little tree with three trunks instead of one: “Mummy, what about this one?” His childlike wonder at Christmas was not concerned with adult thoughts like size, shape, and how the tree would fit the elegant decor of the house. He loved all the trees! “Maybe, pumpkin” Mom replied. “But let’s look around before we make a decision.” They walked slowly through the night air down aisle after aisle of perfectly acceptable trees, listening to the carols blaring from the tinny-sounding speakers, and soaking in as much of the holiday spirit as possible.
Christine became lost in thoughts of recent events--especially the day her drawing room door had swung open and in padded little Justin on a mission with his nanny. Christine had been drowning in the sea of her sorrow just before that moment, overwhelmed by the destruction of her family--almost without hope. It had seemed that her soul and spirit were deprived of air and would die within her breast leaving her a hollow shell of a woman, drowned to death on the inside but alive on the outside.
And then a very strange thing had happened. It was as if a waft of the breath of life had blown through her spirit, and her hope did not die. In fact, it came alive in a way Christine had never known. Her friend Susan had invited her to a breakfast talk about Jesus and the very thought of it had ignited a spark of hope within her. She felt herself drawn to go with a force which surprised her. Christine was amazed that she had not wanted to swallow a whole bottle of pills or drive the Jaguar into a bridge abutment. Then the door had swung open and in came June and Justin.
“Justin has something to tell you,” June had said with no fanfare. And out of his little mouth tumbled the whole story of how he had believed in Jesus one night with the help of his nanny and how they prayed every night for Christine and Mick to believe in Jesus, too. The employer part of Christine’s mind had wanted to be upset that June had done this without asking her, but it wasn’t. In fact, she found her heart drinking in the news thirstily and with gladness. “June...” Christine asked hesitantly, “Can you explain it to me, too?”
Suddenly Christine’s attention was wrenched back to the present at Christmas Nick’s as she spied a familiar shock of long hair in the next aisle. “Mick!” she cried right through the branches. “What are you doing here?!?” Mick spun around and looked as astonished as she felt: “I...umm...I...ahh...was looking for a Christmas tree. I...uh...didn’t know if...I thought...I might bring it over for Justin. Could I come for a visit?”
A silent scream of outrage built with Christine’s heart: “No way!” she shouted inside without moving her lips. “The audacity! Who does he think he is?!?” She looked at his forlorn face and when her lips finally did begin to move she was surprised to hear herself say, “Christmas Eve, seven o’clock. No booze.”
As Mick turned to flee he felt like a child who had received the best Christmas gift of his life. Christine called out again and he turned to look at her through the green needles. “I don’t hate you... I did, but now I don’t. I don’t know why.” In the glare of the string of bare light bulbs Justin smiled, and a host of invisible angels smiled with him.
THEIR FIRST NOEL
Pastor Dennis was in a funk. It was five o’clock on Christmas Eve. The heat was turned on, the sparse decorations were in place, the service was set to start at seven o’clock, and Dennis had no idea what he was going to say. There was nothing difficult about the story of Jesus’ birth. He could always do the main story in the usual way and he had no doubt God would bless it. But on this Christmas Eve he stared out the window of the modern brick building, watched the snow fall, and felt that he was caught in the grip of events beyond his control.
Dennis was not one given to whims or fancies in the pursuit of ministry. The congregation at Eastgate Evangelical Church had called him because he was committed to the preaching and teaching of the Bible. And tonight’s service would be no exception. But which text, and why? Dennis decided he did not have to know why but he needed to know what. He lofted a prayer concerning his need to the most high God and promptly fell asleep.
Dennis started at the sound of a car door slamming. With alarm he looked at his watch: six forty-five! He ran to the front door of the church, unlocked it, and swung it open to a small group of familiar faces waiting in the cold. There were a few new faces, mostly family members who came on holidays. He greeted each one warmly: “Good to see you! Glad you came! How’s that bad knee? and Merry Christmas!” He meant every word.
When the group had filed in Dennis noticed a black stretch limousine idling at the curb. “Who could this be?” Dennis did not know any evangelical Christians in Great Britain who rode around in limos. A sharply-dressed chauffeur jumped out and opened the back door. Out popped a shapely leg which was followed by the rest of a beautiful young woman in a sable designer fur. Next out the door, gripping her hand, was a handsome young boy in a miniature suit. Then came a conservatively-dressed woman with a peaceful expression. Last to emerge was a tall man with long hair dressed like an undertaker from the eighteen hundreds.
As they entered the church they introduced themselves. “I’m Christine and this is Justin.” “Hello, I’m Susan.” And looking rather sheepish, the undertaker grasped Dennis’ hand: “I’m Mick.” They all stood there looking at him as if they expected him to respond in a certain way. “Welcome!” was all he said. “The service is about to start.” As they walked down the aisle and sat in the very first row, Dennis saw Mick lean down and whisper: “He doesn’t know who we are!”
The piano began with the introductory strains of The First Noel. They sang more carols, read the Scriptures on the Christmas story, and then Dennis got up to speak. Normally he had very modest expectations for the Christmas Eve service, yet he had prayed and prepared as diligently as ever. In fact, he was over-prepared for this service. He had brought into the pulpit not only a message he had prepared for this year but two from previous years as well. All were good messages, all were the word of God, and God would bless any one of them. But which one? He looked out at the little band of hearty believers, ranged along the back pews as usual.
But this year what looked like an Academy awards entourage was front and center, looking quite unfamiliar with the surroundings. In a moment of time which seemed to stretch into minutes but which was no doubt only a few seconds he looked into every face in that front row. Of the four of them were two which pierced his shepherd’s heart. It was as if the Great Shepherd within him wanted to leap out of his heart and begin applying the oil of healing to these two immediately. He read pain there, injury, and a level of brokenness he had rarely seen. He also read a sense of purpose there. They had not just wandered in. Dennis knew that this night would not be merely another nice Christmas Eve service. It was to be a pivot point in the spiritual universe.
Dennis quickly put all of his prepared messages away and opened the Bible to Isaiah 61 where he had done his devotional that morning. “What’s Christmas really all about?” he began. “Why did Christ really come? Isaiah explained it in a prophecy given centuries before Jesus was born: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, /Because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted; /He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...”
“That would be us,” Mick mumbled under his breath. Tears rolled down Christine’s face. That night every word the pastor spoke was to Mick and Christine the very voice of their heavenly Father ministering grace and healing to them. “How did he know about us?” Christine asked Susan in a whisper as they filed out.
Again they stood before Pastor Dennis at the door, but with new eyes of wonder that God would speak to them through someone they had never met. “Just visiting?” Dennis asked, still not recognizing these royals of British rock music. “Not any more,” Christine replied in a voice husky with emotion. “I think we’ve just come home.”
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen; and you do not receive our witness. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.” For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:1-16 -- NASB).