To everyone that has made this happen so far...and you know who you are:


Thank You


In no particular order:

Mike
Cameron
Karen
Kellie
Robbie
Boris
Simon and Lucia
Eerika
James

Again, I say Thank You.

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Posted by Joshua Ballard to Explicit Content at 11/19/2006 11:55:00 AM

I don't know what the chances are, but I was linked to this site by a mate who came across it at random himself. I scrolled down to suss out if this blog was worthy of a repeat visit when I found this, needless to say, as a Father...I think this is GOLD.

Katzwinkel:

No Daughter of MINE...
I walked into my workplace today and found myself surrounded by teenaged cheerleaders. I don't work in a school, nor in an alternate universe of deviate fantasy, so I was forced to take pause.

My first thought was 'field trip,' but school is out and I've never seen an all-cheerleader field trip in full cheerleading regalia. Trust me... I would remember that. They weren't doing anything, really... just standing in clumps of three or four, chewing gum, flipping hair, giggling, bouncing, and holding white canisters.

White canisters? That's when it clicked. They were collecting money. They were fund-raising, shaking their literal moneymakers in downtown Chicago in order to purchase new batons and practice mats. They weren't even selling anything.

I was appalled. My titillating and deeply primal arousal instantly morphed into a visceral disgust. Is this how high schools make money now? By pimping out the Pom Squad on the city streets? How long before the Catholic schools catch on and unleash a squadron of whorelings in jumpsuits, pigtails, tied-up white shirts, and red lollipops in an effort to supply the congregation with e-hymnals?

These girls were but one tassel away from the stripper pole... and somebody was paying attention at the Pimp Academy; the girls weren't scattered all over the city... they were covering only each entrance and exit of The Chicago Board of Trade, one of the world's largest nexuses of rich, old perverts.

These guys were having a field day with it, too, a-hootin' and a-hollerin' and slappin' each other on the back and explaining in detail the lecherous activities that would take place if only they were forty years younger. That went on for most of the day, until I finally asked if nobody was shocked by the transparent sale of minority flesh (thereby establishing myself as the resident "fag").

"Those are just little girls," I said. "Somebody's daughter."

To which a sixty-year-old man chuckled, "Well... not my daughter."

That enlightened observation led to another prolonged bout of knee-slappin' hysteria. Until I asked a guy I knew to have a teenaged daughter, "Hey, Mike... where does your daughter go to school?" That made everybody very quiet, and very angry.

On the CBOT food chain, I rank just above algae, and I crossed quite a distinct line by suggesting that a trader's daughter might be a painted strumpet for sale. My boss told me that it was quite enough out of me, so I buried my nose in my work.

But it was too late... I had shattered their perverse illusions and switched their ideas from provocative to protective, and they couldn't lust over little girls anymore. I'm not sure how they didn't see it before... most of the have, or have had, one or more young daughters. I've never had any kids and I was deeply concerned.

That got me to wondering, as I went through the motions of make-work, how I would handle such a situation if--hypothetically--my daughter was involved. After much time-consuming thought and very careful consideration, I decided that if my theoretical daughter were dressed up in a skimpy cheerleading uniform and sent to the streets of downtown Chicago to collect singles from aging men... my head would implode upon comprehension. The searing, unfathomable rage would generate so much adrenaline as to dissolve my grey matter and skull, killing me, and leaving my face and hair to collapse into my neck hole.

That scenario does not bode well for future twinkles in my eye, leaving them fatherless when my brain melts in reaction to the PTA Flesh Peddlers. I need a plan. I need to take action now in order to become an insanely overbearing, mega-protective, lunatic father-beast from the planet Cockblock in the future. It's what's best for everybody.

I've already laid out a rough plan... it needs a lot of fleshing out, but I think it's a good start, so I'll share it here in an effort to cloister future daughters everywhere.

1) Name your daughter Chlamydia.

2) In lieu of a mobile above your daughter's crib, mount a television running clips of nuns in constant rotation.

3) Educate your daughter: teach her that female genitalia is called a "vagina," and that male genitalia is a writhing mass of barbed tentacles that shoots lye in all directions when touched, exposed to light, or wondered about.

4) Protect your daughter with sunscreen SPF 1,000,000, which will actually repel all light and keep her shrouded in darkness on those rare occasions that she is allowed to leave the house.

5) Seriously... just shoot every boy within a mile of your daughter... it's the only way.

posted by Katzwinkel at 12:51 PM

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Posted by Joshua Ballard to Explicit Content at 10/27/2006 01:15:00 AM

I was recently kind of forced to reflect on some of those issues that keep me a little scared. It was really funny how it happened. The conversation so innocent, and yet neither of us knew what was about to be uncovered. She asked me to tell her something that she didn't know about me, which was an difficult enough request. The honest answer is that I am fairly open, and there isn't much that our many hours on the phone hasn't uncovered already.

But then I noticed, I have this nasty little splinter in my soul. She noticed it too. Painful little bastard. Funny how I never noticed it, never NEEDED to notice it. In fact, I think I put up a fair few walls in my relationships which kind of helped me not get to this point.

The story came out, and it generally related to a previous wound dealt by someone that I was extremely close to. If you already know my story, you will be able to reconstruct this fairly easily. But for those who are not in the know, we'll just say that it has deeply affected my ability to simply TRUST. It's not so much about WHAT they did, but HOW they did it.

In thinking about this, I have had to deal with the question: If I cannot now, or couldn't trust, and I mean REALLY trust someone, then what the hell have I been doing in my relationships with people up until now? Even with her?

I'm thinking that the scary answer is along the lines of something found in the writings of Jeremiah, who stated that the heart is deceitful. Its when you have a bit of a jarring experience, a change, or something like it that you can look at your existing circumstances and say: "“Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense"”

I think I had one of those moments, sparked by our conversation. It kind of reminded me of a couple of my little vulnerabilities. I wanted to tell her that I needed that hurt to be protected. I needed the splinter to stay there, and that she would simply need to learn to tender-foot it around that particular part of my life.

No sudden movements.

You know, just avoid doing things that were similar to what happened...and I will be fine.

Then I thought about it. The circumstance which dealt the blow, was really one of those things that could even affect a simple trust level in our relationship. If this splinter wasn't removed, it had the infectious potential to completely destroy what we do have, and what we are baby-stepping towards.

So with this little infection, my own little constructions to substitute for REAL trust, have taken a form of trust...but as with most evils, don't stack up in comparison to the real thing. Every relationship I've had since that incident.Has been built on the same fake-trust groundwork.

And I didn't even know it.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't lying. As far as I knew, I was being completely open and honest. But go down a few levels, and the foundation for my honesty was a cynical one. The underlying expectation was for the burn. Even though I covered it with a kind of "happy-thoughts" denial type of trust. Its probably been best represented as the kind of unhealthy faith stuff that you see in brainwashed cult victims.

A fake-trust built on denial. What a scary ass thought. Looked real enough to me, and it even served its purposes for a while.

How shameful that at some level I thought that I needed this with her.

So in thinking about this, I am wondering what it is that I'm screaming for on the inside.

Security in the relationship? It goes a way to explaining a few of the thoughts running through my head lately.

Best way to secure a relationship in Christian circles is to marry 'em. Especially considering that both of our theological positions are firmly set against divorce.

"Is that your final answer?"..."Yeah, Lock it in, Eddie."

Seeing as the divorce statistics are what they are (and sadly, even among Christians), and the marriage counseling industry being what it is..."”wedding ring lockdown"” is not the answer. This security shit needs to be dealt with elsewhere.

So where is it that we find our security in our relationships?

The first answer I can think of is that we only find it in God. But even then...it seems that it isn't really a trust of the other, but a trust that you'll be fine (i.e. God will look after you) if the other fucks up.

While this is true, it doesn't seem to contribute to intimacy much.

So at the base level, we have a part of the answer. I still wonder how the rest of it works.

It was at this point that I went off on a little tangent. Thinking about Jesus, and how he interacts with us. I had to wonder: How does Jesus trust me?

Its a disturbing thought to have, and I haven't yet fully worked out what the implications are. My initial reaction was that Jesus DOESN'T trust me...I mean, he can't POSSIBLY trust me. I know my proclivities towards rejecting him. How much more does He know them? Being omniscient would seem to have its drawbacks in this relationship.

Off that tangent, I was brought back to the cross. In one moment on the cross, Jesus Christ BECAME sin. He became that relationship that injured me. He became that me that injured others. He became that me that would "injure" Him. He became that husband that would cheat on his wife, the wife that would cheat on her husband. He became the woman that had the abortion to hide her infidelity. He became the woman that raised the child knowing that it wasn't her husband's. He became the Pastor with the pornography addiction. He became that Paedophile. He became that Murderer. He became that Homosexual. He became that "Christian" who hates instead of loves.

He became...He became...He became...

He took into himself every single suffering. He took into himself every single event that causes suffering. He took into himself that very event that happened to me, that left that little splinter in my soul. He took that very splinter into his own soul.

He suffered.

Perfectly. And it didn't overwhelm him. He wore it all. He took it all, cried out "It is done" and it WAS done. And he was still hanging on the cross. Breathing. Alive, and having perfectly suffered. Suffering had done its worst. And even then, it was a reflection of that which God bore in himself from before the creation of the universe.

The suffering didn't kill him.

Jesus let out the cry, "It is done" and then he committed his Spirit into the hands of the Father. He willingly laid down his life into the hands of the Father after having accomplished what none of us could.

Perfection in suffering.

Jesus then died. Perfectly.

And even DEATH couldn't keep him down. Even DEATH in its very fullness couldn't overwhelm Him.

The resurrection is testimony to this. The power of suffering, destroyed at the cross. The power of death, destroyed at the resurrection.

But he still had to go through it. The Bible tells us that he DESPISED the cross. He SCORNED the shame that is associated with crucifixion. He didn't enjoy it. He didn't just fake it. He ENDURED the cross for the sake of the joy that was set before him.

Theologically, we understand the tearing of the veil in the temple to be indicative of the work of Jesus in bringing us into communion with the very presence of God in the power of The Holy Spirit.

The joy that was set before him was the pleasure of the Father. The Glory of Jesus is the pleasure of the Father, and the manifestation of the Pleasure of the Father was for creation to be brought into the experience of the eternal love of the Trinity. Why? Because the Father is worth it. His greatness is that good. He is worth the Crucifixion. He is worth the Resurrection.


At the end of this, I still don't know how Jesus could trust me. I don't know how I can trust her. But now, I'm not sure it entirely matters.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"

I'm starting to wonder how much the "trust thing"” really has to do with the foundations of relationship. You cannot "trust" that the other party will not hurt you. To do so is to be in denial.

Perhaps the key is in the preparedness to be injured for the other. Not for suffering's sake, but for the joy that is set before the both of you. In Malachi we find that a portion of the Spirit is found within the marriage union. The same Spirit that eternally binds together the Trinity is the same spirit that binds together a marriage. If the same Spirit that resurrected Christ, for the pleasure of the Father, is in the marriage covenant, how much of the Pleasure of the Father found in those that endure each other's injuries in the power of the Spirit?

Not masochistically enjoying those injuries. But desiring that the cup of suffering and injury be removed from you, despising the sufferings, scorning their shame. But nevertheless enduring them for the portion of joy set before you.

Maybe the groundwork and foundation isn't trust...wouldn't that be a scary thought?

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Posted by Joshua Ballard to Explicit Content at 10/20/2006 07:02:00 AM

Well...


Here I go, shooting off a blog/email before class...thinking about the kinds of questions that I want to ask her. Wondering what it is that I would actually want asked of me at the same time. The concept is scary as hell, she said I was "self-aware". But there are times when I wonder if I am a little TOO self-aware...why ? It is in self-awareness, which is only really found in reflection of who Jesus is in relation to the Father, that we are able to assess the areas where who we are needs to be denied. Jesus called it denial of self and Paul called it dying daily.

The more I look at myself, the more I realise that while I am on the path, we still live in a state of now/not yet. The process towards sanctification can be incredibly subtle, punctuated by bursts of clearly noticed transformation.

I've been thinking about the things that I've liked over the years, and the jolts to the system that the Holy Spirit has graciously given me.

I used to be a womaniser, a car nut (well, unhealthily so anyway), a materialist and a power-hungry-monster-man.

I say this, not because I am proud of such things, but the fact remains that I used to LIKE all those qualities about myself. Shit, in some cases I LOVED those qualities in myself, and I encouraged others to imitate me as I imitated...I don't know what.

It really has an effect on the kinds of things I want to know about her. That which I want to know about her now, is not necessarily who God is making her to be. Just as if she had met me before Jesus got to me...she definitely wouldn't have given me what she has so far. And this is a good thing. It would have been incredibly unhealthy for both of us.

So it kind of makes the questions a little more intimate in nature. The superficial stuff like "what kind of car do you like?" or "what is your favourite food?", while important questions after all...are not really that good in revealing the character of a person.

I can't think of how many times I have changed my mind on what my favourite car was, or even my favourite colour/food/movie etc...The only thing it reveals was a dissatisfaction with where my life was. As a Christian, this can only be amplified...as they say...if you aren't growing...you're dead.

The really funny thing is that my baby mama doesn't even know me anymore either. We lived together for about 2 years...have a beautiful daughter...and she wouldn't have a clue as to who I am now. I don't say this as a critique of her, but as a demonstration of the change that has happened in my life.

So if you asked her about me...you would get all different kinds of responses about me.

So getting back to her...and no, not my baby mama...you know...her

What then would I ask her? Getting to know who she was, is extremely important...but getting to know who she will be seems to be where it is at for me. That can only be discovered by finding out who she has been, who she is being, and mutual reflection and self-reflection on what is being changed.


So my first question/statement to her would probably be:

Start from the beginning...I want to know it all.

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Posted by Joshua Ballard to Explicit Content at 9/27/2006 08:56:00 AM

She is a yeti, or so her desire for walking barefoot in the snow would suggest. She's gotten the bug for “Annie go get yer gun” and has been transformed by it, passions ignited by the simplicity of such life, a distraction from the frantic. Her desires are for peace, rest, and love. Noble qualities, cloaked in passion. Her love for characters betrays a desire to do everything, and not simply settle for one particular pathway throughout life. Tradition permeates her desires, as her memories of time past point her towards goodness. Her innocence of heart is communicated in her love for simple things. Her security in personhood communicated and reinforced by her place in family, a love which transcends other desires.

Tell her you think she is amazing, Tell her why you think she is so amazing, play with her hair, lightly kiss her, Hold her hand and walk. Just hold her hand. Pick flowers for her, Tell her she looks beautiful, introducing her to friends as 'The most amazing girl I know'. Sit in the park and talk to her, Take her to the library, ice skating, playgrounds and coffee shops. Tell her stupid jokes...whatever it takes to make her laugh. Write poetry about her. Walk with her, even if it's just around the block. Surprise her. Do things that make her smile, make her laugh and make her want to kiss you on the face. Be spontaneous, When she starts yelling at you, tell her you love her. Tell her you love her. Play mud footbal with her, play in the snow with her. Let her fall asleep in your arms. Call her...even just to say Hi. Call her back when she calls you. Jump on the bed with her. Sing to her, no matter how bad you are. Carve your names into a tree. When she is mad, kiss her. Don't get her mad. Push her on swings. Stay up and talk with her all night. Leave her little unexpected notes...telling her how much she means to you. Take her to romantic places and lay out blankets to look up at the stars. Ignore the stars, and look at her. Make up nicknames for each other. Show up at her school or class unexpectedly. Send flowers and dorky notes that only you two understand. Teach her guitar. Lend her your cd's. Make her cd's of songs that remind you of her. Write her letters. If she asks you to go to a show with her, go, even if it means a five hour car trip. Go out on a road trip even if there's no destination or you can't be gone long. Take her to cool shops, and let her take you to even cooler ones. Listen to her favourite songs. When she's sad or sick, hang out with her or stay on the phone with her, even if she's not saying anything. Buy her ice cream. Let her tak all the pictures of you she wants. Look into her eyes. Slow dance with her, even when the music is fast. Make her a romantic dinner for special days. Remember dates...even ones like your first kiss or date and suprise her on the anniversary. Kiss her in the rain. Kiss her in the snow...kiss her when she least expects it. When you fall in love with her, tell her.

These things, of which she is worthy, still don't encompass the desire that he has for her. The friendship that she offers you is enhanced by these things, not destroyed. Fulfilled, not cheapened.

In spite of these things, there are obstacles to be overcome...the pain from previous violations of trust, the previous hurts, the lies she has been told, the walls formed to protect her from such things, and the attempts to escape them...only to be hurt again. The slivers of sunlight that pour through the cracks in the rock, that let out rays of her beauty. Quickly! See! Yes! There it is!

Yet, there is more. She has reached that point. The point of exasperation. She sees the value of the man whose desire is to nurture, protect and empower her...and not to abuse or use her. But she is yet to find him, for she would hold on to him for all his worth. Until he inevitibly hurts her, for his lack of perfection. Would she refuse to give up? Would she refuse to quit? The restlessness of soul that she experiences cannot be resolved by even this man, but by God. But Oh that God would use him to love there alongside her. He would love God through her, she would love God through him. A love that could be loved purely. It is with these words that his expression towards her finds the ground, that he may learn to crawl in love, walk in love, run in love and fly in love.

Would these words be the boundaries of this love? No, they would be no more the limit of this love, as the ground beneath them would be the start of where they would go together.

Xanga

...so this is what all the fuss is about...

And with that, there was nothing left to read about her. The rest must be discovered with much patience and endurance. But it would be worth it. Oh would it be worth it, to discover even more of this woman.

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Posted by Joshua Ballard to Explicit Content at 9/04/2006 02:14:00 AM