Kippy's Betrayal
You should read part one of this story, Recovering Kippy, before you read this.
It all started when I found an old copy of Goethe's "Faust" at a used bookstore.
The image on the cover is the alchemical symbol for the "Principle of Mercury", whatever that is. What I know about alchemy can be written Henry David style, right on my thumbnail.
I'd never read "Faust", but I thought I might like to someday. I bought the book and tossed it into the back seat of my car, where it sat for a couple of weeks.
Christy noticed the book when she was helping me unload some groceries. All of a sudden she shouted, "Oh my God," and shot out of the car.
"That's a satanic book," she said, pointing to the back seat. There was a wild, panicked look in her eyes.
I rushed over, alarmed by the tone of her voice. "What? What book?"
"That book in the car. That's a satanic symbol. I remember seeing it during one of my father's black masses. Oh my God!"
I had no idea what she was talking about, but she was creeping me out. I leaned into the car, looked around, and saw the book. I exhaled loudly, relieved. Damn, that girl spooked me.
I shouted from inside the car, "Hey, it's nothing. It's just my copy of Faust. Nothing to worry about."
I thought it was a simple misunderstanding. Given her history, it was understandable that the symbol on the cover might scare her. I figured we'd be laughing about this by supper.
I was wrong. I backed out of the car and found her in a hysterical state. She was looking around like she thought her daddy was going to jump out from behind a bush.
I didn't understand what was happening at the time, but I think I do now. Christy initially thought that someone from her father's cult had planted the book as a kind of creepy warning to her. She thought it was a message to let her know they knew where she was. Her stories were full of stuff like that. According to Christy, you could never leave a satanic group. They would use their dark powers to find you. They would never give up.
There was a kind of paranoid grandiosity to the whole thing. Christy was center stage, her soul of the highest value to the forces of evil. They would stop at nothing to find her. It was very Jungian, the dark side of Christianity surfacing in a bad dream.
At the time I just wanted to calm her down. I tried to tell her the truth about the book. “Whoa, slow down. It’s okay. Listen, it’s not a satanic book; its just “Faust".
"What's Faust?"
"It's an old story - a classic. It's about a guy who… well, it's just this old story, you know, about a guy who, uh, has, um, some troubles. It's German; it's this German story."
I admit I wasn't making a whole lot of sense. I was talking and trying to figure out what was going on in Christy's head. As I talked I was also realizing that I probably shouldn't go into any details about Faust selling his soul to Mephistopheles.
For a second I thought she was calming down. She seemed to hear me. She stopped breathing so hard, and she looked right at me. I smiled, thinking the whole episode was over.
It was the last time we would ever make eye contact.
"It's YOUR book?"
I mistook the tone in her voice for relief. "Sure," I said, still not anticipating what was to come.
She stared at me for a few seconds, and then I saw something I hope I never see again. I watched her feelings for me turn from love to hatred in a matter of seconds. I saw the whole transformation in her face. It began with a blank look of bewilderment, then her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She shook her head a few times in denial, as though she didn't want to believe the worst. Finally her jaw set and anger flashed in her eyes.
It was like watching one of those horror movies where a spell is broken, and the corpse goes from flesh to dust in five seconds.
"You're one of them," she said, backing away.
I was stunned to the point of losing speech. My feet were glued to the ground. I managed a weak protest.
"What? No! Christy! Are you kidding me? I never…"
I don’t think she heard me. She was already moving for her car. She jumped in and started the engine. I ran toward her, but her tires were already squealing on the pavement. She was gone.
In the years since, I have developed a pretty thick skin. That’s a paradox of ministry. You have to have a thick and a thin skin. You have to learn to hold compassion and detachment in balance. It takes years to learn this art.
I was much younger then, and all I had was the thin skin I was born with. What she said wasn't true, but it was horribly painful to know that someone thought I was evil and involved in a conspiracy of abuse. I felt bad inside, almost like it WAS true. I felt real bad. I couldn’t shake it, either. Not for a couple of weeks.
Every time I heard Sharon’s little voice say, “Where’s Kippy?” my heart would crack open again.
Christy left a bunch of her stuff in our guest room, so I thought we might see her again. I hoped she would come to her senses. When the doorbell rang a few days later, I thought it might be her.
It wasn't. Instead, two very serious looking women were on my front porch. They looked at me with pure hatred in their eyes.
"We're here for Christy's things,” they said, pushing past me into the house.
One of them hastily scooped Christy's stuff into a cardboard box. The other one never took her eyes off me. She watched me closely, like I might put a hex on them. I noticed her lips were moving as she whispered constant prayers for protection.
I was their worst nightmare, a worshipper of Satan posing as a preacher, leading a whole congregation to hell. A vicious traitor, a thief of souls.
Christy had told me about a radical group of Christians that served as a kind of witness relocation program for people who had escaped ritual abuse. I assumed these women were a part of that group.
When they finished gathering her things, they left without a word. As they drove away I could see Christy in the back seat, her head bowed.
She did not turn around and look back.
For the record, I have no idea how much of Christy's story was true, if any. I suspect she did have an abusive father. In some parts of the Christian world, adding a satanic spin to your story can get you a lot of sympathy. Bodyguards even. I think she needed the attention and slipped the story on like a familiar jacket. Memories can be tricky to manage, especially when you are dredging them out of your pain.
That "Faust" is the book that caused all this is, well, interesting. I never did read it, but I keep the book on my shelf as a reminder of...something. I don’t know what. It has survived several book purges over the years as I’ve moved toward simplicity. For some reason, I can never bring myself to get rid of it.
I have no idea where Christy is today, but I'm guessing she tells this story too. Perhaps she gathers the faithful around her and tells of the day she almost got dragged back into Satanism by the counterfeit preacher. Thank God she spotted the book in time. The Lord always provides a way for the faithful.
We share a common story, separated by radically different memories. Recovered memories, perhaps. Our stories follow very different paths, but they both end in the same place.
Betrayal.
The Preacher
9:19:39 AM 
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