To many—to most, I suspect—fireworks are a wonder of childhood, an annoyance of pet owners, a fire and injury hazard, or just celebratory and beautiful. They’re all these things to me, plus you can add my appreciation of the more intricate ones as technical achievements. I grew up on Long Island, in NY, where the most intricate fireworks are developed and tested every 4th of July at a public display you could watch from your car in the Jones Beach parking lot, listening to simulcast music that synced with the explosions. We’d see the latest and the greatest effects the year before they’d show up at the big Independence Day fireworks extravaganza in NYC.

But the Grucci fireworks factory on Long Island’s East End was destroyed by an explosion that was investigated by my professional colleagues and friends at the local OSHA office – people I knew from my meetings with the local chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers. A stray spark from someone’s shoes set off an explosion that killed two, and wounded 24.

And then there was the time that fireworks figured into my healing from childhood abuse.

After a particularly bad time when my ex abandoned me and the children, I’d been diagnosed with life-long, chronic depression. The medicines for that, Prozac and eventually Zoloft, gave me a safe platform from which to heal. Once my eighth counselor (eighth!) finally had the brains to see what the other ones missed (that my father drinking a six-pack of beer a night had NOT been normal), I spent several years in Al-Anon’s Adult Child program. I learned what was my fault, what was not my fault, and how to thrive and grow as a person.

What I did not realize, until those fateful fireworks, was that I was rather severely disassociated. I had been watching my life from the outside, not in my own skin and living it. A poem in my chapbook about depression describes that state:

Hovering

Waiting, breathlessly
Just outside of my life,
I look at the world as I look at my spirit –
From the outside.

I want to be comfortable in relaxing my vigilance
I want to focus on an inner life of serenity

But out of habit, I hover,
Uncertain of the feeling of just living my life
Uncomfortable in this body that was
Never a safe place.

Breath in.
Breathe out.
Calm down.

Get comfortable with living.

So on that fateful night I had taken my grade-school-aged children to a local Town of Islip fireworks display that was being done over Knapp’s Lake. The lake was not large, so the explosions were much closer to the ground than I was used to. Also, we were on foot so it made the displays seem even closer. One went off above us with a triple boom! And… well, then something odd happened to me.

For the first time in my entire life I felt I was experiencing something—body and soul and spirit unified. I was not just watching it as an observer; I was feeling it. I was present in my own body. I was there. Up until that point I had no idea what I had been missing, that I had been so disconnected.

So if a particular firework now and then makes me get a little teary-eyed, forgive me. They were a neon signpost on the road to my healing. It’s just nostalgia. Or maybe it’s just the drifting, rememberance of some gunpowder smoke getting into my eyes.

The July 2020 issue of Abyss & Apex is published at https://www.abyssapexzine.com/ Here’s the table of contents. Enjoy!

ISSUE 75: 3RD QUARTER 2020

EDITORIAL
“Couped Up” by Wendy S. Delmater

FICTION
“The Bringer’s Duty” by Heather Pagano
“Relic” by Gunnar De Winter
“The Coming End” by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Jonathan Miller
“Scales and Fire” by Jeff Soesbe
“Future Imperfect” by Desmond Warzel

FLASH FICTION
“Five Reasons for the Sign Above her Door, One of Them Unspoken” by Izzy Wasserstein

POETRY EDITORIAL
“Introduction to Abyss & Apex Poetry Issue 75” by John C. Mannone

POETRY
“And It Was Bad” by Anne Carly Abad
“Old Playfellow” by Noel Sloboda
“three days on battey street” by Maria Zoccola
“After the War” by Helga Kidder
“Runaway” by Jennifer West
“Surfacing” by Tiffany Morris
“A Planet’s Complaint” by Lauren McBride
“The Distance” by Cat Dixon
“First Contact” by Ken Poyner

SMALL PRESS BOOK REVIEWS
Shift by C.N. Lesley
Common Source by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
Goddess Rising by Jay Hartlove

Subscribe to my Amazon Author page, here, and get an end-of the week chuckle very Friday. https://www.amazon.com/Wendy-S.-Delmater/e/B01C0Y19F8/ Here’s this week’s offering.

I use completely separate computers for working at home and relaxation. Last week my leisure computer – an old tower with 4 TB of storage, had an issue and I was very glad there was no data loss. Just because a computer is not used for work does not mean I get to avoid backups. And as for your work computer, make sure you have working backups for that one, too. I don’t want to have to console you when your manuscript disappears.

Today’s Book Quote Wednesday keyword is “FIND.” I chose a poem from my chapbook that (a) explains what depression is like to those who do not suffer from it and (b) gives hope to those who do: Plant a Garden Around Your Life.

This book is a surprise best-seller of mine at conventions! People open it and read a sample poem or two, and they’re hooked. Take a look inside, here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I4FNQTE/

Despite my heavy work load getting the new edition of Abyss & Apex Magazine up this week I simply could not resist working on more of the manuscript for Wolves’ Masquerade. It has an intriguing title, doesn’t it?

Wolves’ Masquerade is a non-fiction book I simply have not been able to get out of my head, one that talks about how types of dysfunction masquerades as Christian “virtues.” Here’s an excerpt of the work-in-progress:

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6.  Control Via Guilt Masquerading as Discipline

Another wolf attitude is Control Via Guilt, which can masquerade as the Christian virtue of  Discipline.

A controlling person will take care of you, for your own good! Christians are called to be compassionate, but the proper response to someone trying to push you into doing what they want by using guilt is, “No.” The blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin AND guilt[i], so a person trying to make you do things via guilt is using a dead weapon of the defeated enemy of our souls.

Here’s how such controlling attitudes work and can infiltrate themselves into our homes and church life.

Codependency starts at home, and is fear-based. This is especially true of the children of alcoholics or persons with other substance abuse problems, because during childhood children learn the false but iron-clad rule that they must try to control the environment and appease the addict to feel safe.  But it’s not exclusive to those environments.

If a codependent person’s self-esteem is based on the opinions of others, not on their relationship with Christ, controlling those around them helps codependents feel safe and secure. As a Christian your security, however, should be in your relationship with Christ. The Christian virtue of self-control comes from the inside, from the Lord (2^nd Timothy 1:7); it cannot be imposed from the outside, by others. Unless you’re a dealing with a child or it’s a matter of a joint decision in a marriage, what you control ends at the tip of your nose. All you can control are your own responsibilities, your reactions to things that happen, and your part of your walk with God.  Otherwise, every believer needs to relinquish the impulse to control that comes from our own sinful natures to God’s guidance through our “new man”: Christ in us.

Dysfunctional controlling can be as simple as someone pushing you to volunteer past your ability to give time and resources or as blatant as a cult. But usually it’s more subtle.

Example: My mother-in-law used to give my husband and myself things we never asked for (usually broken in some way, I might add). Then we “owed her favors” for “all she’d done for us.” Others have tried the same old trick: people do something for you and now you’re supposedly in their debt. They’re trying to control you with their generosity.

Another common control mechanism via guilt is something like when a mother complains to an adult child that, “You never call, you never write.” Someone – say, a mother-in-law – may have a perfectly legitimate claim on a potion of your time and attention, but will blow that out of proportion. The word of God says that children leave their parents and become one with their spouses, and the role of the parent changes to a less active thing… the marriage is primary. You’ll also see this mechanism with certain employers and certain friends. Whatever it is no matter how unreasonable, you somehow “owe” things to them.

This sort of controlling means the person, again, does not have good boundaries. And the guilt they try to lay on you is false guilt.

For the controller: If you are a Christian whose deepest motivations are fear-based it helps to remind yourself that  “Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18).  You don’t have to control everyone and everything around you to feel safe. Psalm 4:8 says, I will lie down and sleep peacefully, for you, Lord, make me safe and secure.” (emphasis mine)

For the person being controlled:  Learn detachment. Detachment is simply figuring out what your responsibility a situation is and doing only that. Don’t be guilted into doing any of another person’s work! Once you’ve learned detachment, if someone tries to rope you into doing their work or pushes you around you can simply say, “No; that’s not my job!” Look for the things that are expected of you; you can sort them into two columns labeled “My Responsibility:” and “Not My Responsibility.” Then fulfill your responsibilities and politely tell the person trying to control you that certain things are their responsibility (unless, of course you’re in an abusive situation and in danger—in that case get help.) If you want to help your dysfunctional relative, church member, or friend note that detachment and taking care of only your responsibilities can be modeled. Help them by being a good example. You can be a shining example of being kind and loving but still be firm about your boundaries.

Are others trying to control you from the outside? Remember that self-control – discipline – is one of the fruits of the Spirit, it and comes from the Lord, from the inside. “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

[i] Hebrews 10:22