[Written from prison in 2012, but recently speaking about the upside-down-ness of the world got me thinking about this past blog and how it is only the love of God that can turn an upside down world right-side-up] The Upside Down Kingdom of prison--where the hierarchy is an anarchy. It’s supposed to be under the law, but its decree is outlaw.  Without law. The violent don’t even have to take it by force, it’s given by course. What was done outside the gates is what grants you access to the throne. Preceding acts of murder make one royalty and the lives taken are referred to as bodies. Crowns. The most ruthless citizens come into this Upside Down Kingdom by way of carnage and destruction; and by their charge they take charge.  There are many kings and many tables, where rebellion and betrayal are the label. Dishonor is loyalty. Disrespect is stately. And disharmony is kingly.There are different classes of peasants, and you are considered weak if you are pleasant. Those called paupers however, are the ones that give charity, where the nobility are nothing noble. The upper-class find strength in inflicting shame and fear; meanwhile faith is the strength of those who humble themselves to the lower-class and gently persevere. The Upside-Down Kingdom has many gods and idols, but none more worshipped than Lust. The temple is one’s imagination and the offering is self-gratification. Many share their different “scrolls” not realizing that the fatness of the land results in leanness of the soul.In the Upside Down Kingdom you can’t win and this is why I choose to not fit in!Therefore, I take my stand in this Kingdom by bowing down outside of the culture. No class can hold me, no king can scold me. Without affiliation to the power or the people, I am a gladiator; a citizen from another land. We are few, but the gladiators of the Kingdom fight for their lives; and though the Coliseum audience believes it to be entertainment cheering for our blood, we know that we are in fact saved by the blood.I present myself to no man, but love them all the same.  And like Maximus stated, “What we do in this life, will echo in eternity.”  I’m a living sacrifice and I too worship my God in my mind, but mine’s no imagination and results in justification.I follow the lead of Christ whose love turns what’s “Upside Down” right side up!  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written:  ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”  (Romans 8:35-37).In the Upside Down Kingdom, I am a gladiator of grace. And though living forward is backward, my mind is already made-up to live right-side up.