#love

The Upside Down World ~ The Blog

Mar 27, 2014
4 min

The Hardest, Best Spiritual Practice I’ve Ever Tried

Learning how not to judge has been the most demanding, arduous and painful spiritual discipline I have ever undertaken. It’s also been the most fruitful. I could probably write books and books filled with stories and lessons I would never have encountered if I had not made a commitment to practicing this discipline. While most people probably don’t think of not judging as a spiritual discipline, this is exactly how I’ve practiced it. It’s something I do out of obedience and d

Mar 24, 2014
2 min

Men, Sex and Love

I would really, really like to quote the entirity of Micah Murray’s post on the idea that men give love to get sex and women give sex to get love. But doing that is frowned upon here on the internets, so I’m just going to quote a couple juicy bits. But these are no better than the rest of the post. It seemed reasonable enough. And it fit neatly with the gender stereotypes I’d heard all my life: Men think about sex every seven seconds. Women aren’t visual. Men are like microwa

Mar 24, 2014
3 min

Christians and Interracial Marriage

Guys, what is this world coming to? Aljezeera America recently used the parable of the talents to explain current events. Christianity Today, the flagship publication of conservative, Evangelical Christianity, is promoting interracial marriage. And discussing racism. And even relying on the voice of a black women to explain the theology of the whole thing. The world’s going all off kilter here. I know the rest of the world (and many of us) find it ridiculous that the church s

Mar 23, 2014
5 min

Angry Men and Crying Women

In the last few months, I’ve realized something about men and women and why we often struggle with each other. It might not be THE problem, but I would venture to say that it’s certainly been A problem. And figuring this out has been really helpful to me, so I thought I’d pass it on to y’all. It all has to do with the way we express our pain. Generally speaking, there are two ways we experience the emotion of being hurt – through anger or sorrow. They look very different, but

Nov 20, 2013
4 min

Loving People, Loving God

R. Trotter, The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress For a long time, I believed that loving others was an act of love towards God. A way of serving him and living out the love you had for him. If you really love God, then you would love other people as well. If out of obedience if nothing else. There is truth in that perspective. However, I’m coming to understand that the reality is much more profound. Notice that the scriptures say that if you do not love others

Nov 15, 2013
4 min

I Would Rather You Be an Atheist . . .

Some use the text to figure out what love means. Others use love to figure out what the text means. Totally different outcomes. ~ David Hayward aka nakedpastor Last week, someone left a very long, very angry comment on one of my posts railing at what they saw as God’s cruelty, complete with many scripture quotes. I’m not entirely sure if he was an atheist or an angry believer. He probably thought I was going to argue with him. And I could have – the things he was pointing out

Oct 24, 2013
4 min

Illuminating the Dark

I was in the midst of a fit of enraged blasphemy when I had my first real encounter with God. And do you know what happened? Well, I wasn’t rebuked. I wasn’t chastised or condemned. I wasn’t told to get my act together and fly right. All that happened was that God made his love known. Right there in the middle of my hateful ranting. The Light shone into the darkness and the darkness was overcome. I’ve been following God where ever he wanted to lead me ever since.* My dark sid

Sep 29, 2013
6 min

Warning: God Can Be Ruthless

Some years ago my husband was driving through our small town’s business district early in the morning and happened to observe a hawk catch a rabbit. After nabbing the cute little bunny, the hawk alighted on a nearby light post and began ripping into the little thing’s soft belly. What struck my husband was that the rabbit was still alive and struggling when the hawk ripped into its flesh. Yet the hawk was completely unperturbed by the fact that its prey was still screaming. H

Sep 27, 2013
9 min

Making the Most of an Enemy

Growing up in peacetime and as the child of parents who got along with the neighbors rather than starting Hatfield and MaCoy style fueds with them, enemies seemed in short supply. But I’ve always been a tad bit overly earnest, so I figured that in the absence of actual enemies, I would just try to do my best to love the assorted people who managed to hurt my feelings or otherwise bothered or irritated me. Of course, life doesn’t often remain so simple and as I got older, I go

Jul 22, 2013
4 min

Excuse Me While I Get Naked With Y’all

One of the things I have learned is that your gut always tells the truth. It’s not always right, but it always tells you the truth about what you really, deep down believe. Which can be a useful thing to know. Often we know something, we intellectually assent to it, we try to live out of it and we fail continually. Because you can think your way to right belief, but knowing it deep in your gut is another thing. It’s really only when you know it deep in your gut that it become

Jul 15, 2013
4 min

If Jesus Returned Today

If Jesus returned today would you be ready? Would you be ready to live in a world where God was your only source of life? Where you could no longer get life/identity from other people, your accomplishments, your money, your looks, your relationships, your roles, your job, your house, your clothing, your knowledge, your superiority to someone else or any other thing at all? Would you really be ready to live in a world where your only reaction could be love? Where whatever happ

Jul 9, 2013
7 min

Unconditional Love Brings Death

I have something to tell you about people who say that love is squishy, soft, a cop-out: quite clearly, such a person has never actually attempted to love unconditionally. Loving unconditionally is the hardest thing any human being can ever try to do. Confronting sin? Upsetting friends and family? Setting boundaries and rules? Pffftttt . . . . Those are the simplest, most natural things in the world for the fallen human mind to do. Loving unconditionally? That WILL DESTROY YO

Jun 20, 2013
2 min

Being Seen, Heard, Known and Desired

Last weekend I was once again complaining to God and each time I would start, I heard, “I see you.” All day long – just quiet and insistent: “I see you.” OK. That’s nice. The next morning I saw pictures of babies in Iraq born with horrific birth defects. The result of events which I am somehow partly responsible for and yet could do nothing to stop. Powerful men decide to go to war and we all bear guilt. I told God that humanity is hopeless. It’s time to throw in the towel. W

Jun 6, 2013
6 min

Life as a Video Game

There are scientists working with teams at thegamingmonitor.com right now to try and figure out if the universe is actually a massive holograph. Frankly, I’m not really sure what it would mean if it turns out it is. As long as our only awareness is within this realm, I don’t see how knowing that I’m stuck in an intricate projection would change anything. But I do have my own unprovable theory about technology and the nature of our lives which I think could be useful. It’s thi

Mar 8, 2013
5 min

Do You Know How to Feel Loved?

Pretty regularly my three year old Olivia will tell me, “Michaela loves me.” Or Noah or Dad or whoever in the family she’s just been dealing with. Believe it or not, this doesn’t just happen when someone hands her a piece of candy. Often it’s just after being hugged or read a book or being talked with. Just simple things that seem to make her realize that she is cared for. As a mother, I don’t think I’ve ever heard more reassuring words come out of a child’s mouth than Olivia

Feb 28, 2013
3 min

“Love isn’t a feeling . . . It’s an ability”

One of the things that is both frustrating and fascinating to me is how bad we tend to be at loving. We really think we love people even when we are destroying them. Or we have very loving feelings towards people who experience us as aloof, uninterested and disapproving. We say that another’s happiness means more to us than our own and then make them miserable by trying to impose our preferences and vision for how they should find happiness on them. Just over and over again,

Feb 14, 2013
4 min

Love – A Checklist

Everyone likes to think that they are good at loving. After all, we have really strong, loving emotions so surely we must be very loving people, right? But here’s a hint: if the person you love doesn’t experience you as loving, you’re doing it wrong. So in order to help y’all out, here’s a handy-dandy checklist based on the famous 1 Corinthians 13 verses: Love is patient: Do you complain that the object of your affection isn’t improving fast enough? Do you get upset that you

Feb 13, 2013
8 min

Why We Christians Suck at Loving

Is there something about Christianity itself which leads to the sort of oppression which its adherents have too often been guilty of? You know – the inquisitions, colonialism, slavery, pretty much every interaction we ever had with First Nations people in the Americas. To name a few. The standard answer for western theologians is that the Christian faith and its teachings are not the problem – people’s sinful natures are. It’s the, “well those aren’t real Christians” blow off

Dec 22, 2012
5 min

Just a housewife

Let me share a few things about myself which may not be immediately clear just from reading my blog: I became a mother at age 21. Last year I took my first commercial flight since I was 3. I have never been outside of the USA. I have done almost no traveling outside of the Midwest. I was planning to be a high school English teacher before I became a mother. I have 5 kids and two step-children. I am entirely self-taught re scripture, religion, philosophy/rhetoric, psychology,

Sep 2, 2012
4 min

Let’s All Be Fundamentalists!

Statement of (The Upside Down World’s) Fundamentalist Faith: There is great disagreement within the church regarding whether the bible should be taken literally and if so, which parts must be taken literally. Unfortunately, this ongoing disagreement has often kept us from paying enough to those verses which we can all agree ought to be taken literally. So, although there is freedom in Christ which allows for a variety of ideas and understandings to be held by those who follow