#spirituality

The Upside Down World ~ The Blog

Apr 6, 2022
1 min

Keep Up With Sunday Sermons!

Sermons the way they’re meant to be – short, sweet and deep . . . Every Sunday morning I post a Sunday Sermon for free over on my Patreon page. You can find all of them at the link below. And while you’re there, consider becoming a patron. For as little as $2/month, you will be notified when each week’s sermon goes live as well as gain access to exclusive materials and the banging parties I’ll be throwing over there once you’re all signed up! The Upside down world sunday serm

Mar 22, 2021
6 min

On Living and Warring

Years ago one of my sisters got lost for several days while hiking in the mountains. There was a massive search which culminated in her being rescued via a helicopter from the middle of a river several miles from where she had gone missing. Thankfully, she didn’t suffer anything more than dehydration and some trench foot from the experience. But when I spoke with her after it was all over she told me something which I’ve thought of often over the years. She explained that at

Mar 17, 2021
3 min

A Bubble of Protection

Top o’ the morning to ya! As you may have heard, today’s St. Paddy’s day, so I figured I’d share a prayer that I’ve used for years when I’ve felt overwhelmed or fearful. It’s just an abbreviated version of a hymn called St. Patrick’s Breastplate. There’s an apocryphal story about the hymn in which St. Patrick and his monks were facing certain death from a squad of King Leary’s men who had been sent to kill them. St. Patrick and his fellow monks travelled through the woods sin

Jul 26, 2020
6 min

Regarding the State of My Country

You kind of have to laugh to keep from crying. Sometimes my heart just breaks as I watch the lengths the powers of this world are willing to go to to protect a corrupt, destructive system from even the most reasonable, necessary changes. The pain and suffering they’re happy to inflict on everyone while acting like we don’t deserve any better. I have moments where want to be like some melodramatic woman with a cloth on my head crying out in a psalm: “my country, my country”. W

Mar 21, 2020
6 min

Finding Peace In a Time of Dread

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a freight train barrelling down on you and all you can do is wait for it to hit before. You’re waiting for the power to be turned off. The doctor to give the terrible diagnosis. For the court date to come, the judgment to be rendered, the relationship to irreparably break. Where you’ve just stood and watched the cracks form as the world starts to fall out from under your feet. Even if you’ve experienced it all before, waiting for the freight tr

Dec 16, 2019
2 min

America’s Dark Night of the Soul

Everything is really dark right now. The forces of evil appear are fighting to maintain the upper hand and are clearly determined to drag us as far down the ugly path of cruelty and hatred as they can with willing support from people who ought to know better but are under the thrall of hate and so don’t care. People have revealed themselves and it is bizarre how rare genuinely good people seem to be. And yet, I do believe there’s a well of untapped goodness lurking under the

Dec 11, 2019
4 min

Hate In a Time of Trump

In the last few years I’ve had numerous people confess to me that they were really struggling with hate towards Trump, his supporters, his enablers and the gang of conmen and criminals who have taken over our government. Given the behavior of these people, their open animosity, disdain and thinly veiled hatred for the rest of us and the harm being done to our government, our allies and some of the world’s most vulnerable people as the result of this administration, hatred is

Dec 9, 2019
5 min

Rules of Discernment, Rule 3: Diversity

Have you ever really thought about how wildly different in appearance human beings are? With the exception of dogs, animals of the same species will share a narrow range of colors, size, and appearances. But humans can have hair that is orange or white or black, skin from the palest whites to the darkest black, noses that are flat or bulbous or wide or narrow. Our lips come in sizes from billowy to so thin as to be practically non-existent. We can have huge bubble butts and f

Nov 26, 2019
3 min

Rules of Discernment, Rule 1: Authority

One of my persistent frustrations with my fellow Christians is a general lack of discernment and good judgment. As the bible makes amply clear, there are false teachers and bad shepherds out there yet everywhere I turn, I meet Christians who have fallen for con artists and cult leaders and false teachings by the boatload. When you see the wreckage of broken families, broken people and corruption wrought in people’s lives, the persistence and ferocity with which scripture cond

Jan 27, 2017
2 min

Dark Ooze and Webs of Light

This is one of those visions that probably doesn’t require too much explanation. But I wanted to share my basic take on it. In my mind’s eye, the dark ooze started around Great Britain and spread out from there. I believe that this represents the powerful old money and corporate interests which rule the world and have spread a sociopathic, amoral ideology across the planet. The dark ooze carries with it the forces of slavery, oppression, the worship of money, a mentality of e

Jan 11, 2017
1 min

Snowy Day Play

I love videos of animals playing. This one from the Oregon Zoo showing animals in the snow is particularly cute. Isn’t it weird how we’ve been indoctrinated to see animals as unthinking creatures, devoid of relationships and driven only by the instinct to eat and reproduce? Why do we even think that’s the sort of world God would create? Silly. https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Foregonzoo%2Fvideos%2F10154074646286109%2F&show_text=0

Jan 11, 2017
5 min

It’s a Disaster but Everything’s Perfect. I Guess

So, two weeks ago today I fell on an icy driveway and broke my ankle. It was classic; my foot started to slip on the ice, hit dry gravel and stopped. I continued my fall, my foot did not. Just like in every other broken ankle story you’ve ever been told, I heard the crunch of breaking bones, screamed and went into shock. There was no safe way to move me and both my oldest son and my husband have their own issues with balance/stability, so an icy pile-up nightmare was a real d

Dec 23, 2016
5 min

Jesus Saved Our Christmas Dinner

We have a seating problem in our home. Well, two of them actually. The first is that our chairs don’t match and the folding chairs have all lost their stuffing. It’s not very Martha Stewart-ish. Or comfortable. The second is that I have 3 girls under the age of 8. Who all have very strong opinions about where they ought to sit at dinner. And those opinions change nightly. (Yes, yes, I know – each person should have their own seat that they sit in every night. Please, feel fre

Dec 22, 2016
1 min

The Christmas Bird

Instead of doing my Christmas shopping a couple of years ago, I recorded this. It’s perfect for sharing with the kids, if they are the sort who will listen to a recorded story. Grab a cuppa whatever suits you best and listen to the dulcet sound of my voice sharing a heartwarming Christmas story about a farmer, a bird and a little boy. It will be the best 11 minutes of your day. 🙂 For those of you receiving this via email, here’s the link to the recording on soundcloud. Pass

Dec 21, 2016
7 min

All People Are Real

I’ve mentioned a couple of times now that I have a dissociative disorder. A derealization disorder, in fact. Which means that when my dissociative disorder is triggered, nothing around me seems real. Sometimes things literally look like movie sets and sound stages to me. I can’t even watch movies when it’s bad because when everything already looks fake, bad acting takes on a whole new meaning. When it comes to dealing with people, it’s like being locked inside a glass bubble

Dec 17, 2016
6 min

Santa, God and the Problem of Certain Belief

I once knew a family that didn’t do Santa Claus with their kids at Christmas. The reason they didn’t do Santa Claus was because they felt it might lead their children to doubt the existence of God. You see, Santa is basically an old man living far away at the top of the world. He gives you what you want because he loves you. But nobody ever gets to see him. And many children think of God as an old man living far away in heaven who answers our prayers (gives you what you want)

Dec 10, 2016
1 min

Welcome to the Apocalypse, Peeps

I’ve been seeing this meme floating around and it’s incredibly apropos for the times we live in. The Greek word for “apocalypse” is to unveil or reveal. Welcome to the apocalypse, peeps. We’re going to be alright. It just takes a bit to work all the mucky stuff out of the system. Be good to each other, k? Pass It On! Tweet Email More Print Share on Tumblr WhatsApp #apocalypse #spirituality #love #life #revelation

Nov 24, 2016
1 min

A Thanksgiving Blessing

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter

Oct 12, 2016
5 min

Rules For the Wilderness: Do What You Can

Yesterday I shared a vision of a walled city and falling towers which you should go read if you haven’t already. In the vision, the area around the city was wilderness and in this wilderness people lived according to God’s rather than man’s ways. Over the next few days, I want to explore more about this idea of “God’s ways” and what they look like in real life. And today we’re going to start with what I said yesterday was rule #1. Which is an exaggeration. There are a bunch o

Oct 11, 2016
4 min

The Falling Towers of the Doomed City

A while back a friend shared a vision she was given which I think is incredibly relevant to what is going on in the world right now. Even if you’re not a Christian and don’t believe in anything, this will be interesting to you. The person who was given this vision shared it online but has since taken it down. So I’m sharing it from memory, with her permission. In the vision, my friend was sitting on a hill in a wilderness overlooking a walled city. Within the city, towers wer