Pride: Good, Bad or Ugly?
Well, it is June, and this seems like a good time to talk about pride. Some of us are celebrating LGBTQIA community inclusion and cultural contributions. Pride month began in the United States after the Stonewall riots in June 1969 and has spread around the world. Some of us will be celebrating Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865 and which just became a federal holiday in 2021. Some won’t be celebrating either but I encourage everyone to keep reading and explore the role that pride has played in all of our lives.
I love this quote in the image above which so succinctly expresses the main message of Awakened2Love which is loving ourselves and each other for our authentic selves. We can be proud of ourselves and proud of other humans for living our best life, comfortable in our own skin. This kind of pride is healthy and wonderful because it is based in love and acceptance, and this is the pride we are celebrating during Pride month. We need more of this pride.
I just finished reading an excellent book, Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. I will be sharing more about this book in the future because it helped me better understand how we ended up where we are today, especially politically, racially, and socially. One of the main themes in the book is the randomly determined sense of pride or superiority in the United States and other countries based on race, religion, or other factors which has led to horrific chapters in history and continues to impact us today. “Everything that happened to the Jews of Europe, to African Americans during the lynching terrors of Jim Crow, to Native Americans as their land was plundered and their numbers decimated, to Dalits(in India) considered so low that their very shadow polluted those deemed above them—-happened because a big enough majority had been persuaded and had been open to being persuaded centuries ago or in the recent past, that these groups were ordained by God as beneath them, subhuman, deserving of their fate.” (Isabel Wilkerson) Transgender people are a currently targeted group in America. This superiority is a bad, ugly, insidious, abusive and deadly form of pride. We need to erase this from our thinking and from our world.
Some of the most revered religious leaders and icons modeled and taught lives of love and humility. Jesus healed and dined with the outcasts of his society, while condemning the pride and hypocrisy of the religious elite. Let’s look at a few short quotes from the Bible:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4
Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor. Proverbs 29:23
Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud. Proverbs 16:19
In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. Psalms 10:4
Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else. Galatians 6:4
Yes, we can each examine our own actions and thoughts to decide which kind of pride we have. Do you see yourself as better than anyone else based on their race, religion, gender identification, lifestyle, occupation or whatever? Or do you strive to love and accept all people unconditionally?
“None of us chose the circumstances of our birth. We had nothing to do with having been born into privilege or under stigma. We have everything to do with what we do with our God-given talents and how we treat others in our species from this day forward. We are not personally responsible for what people who look like us did centuries ago. But we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today. We are, each of us, responsible for every decision we make that hurts or harms another human being. We are responsible for recognizing that what happened in previous generations at the hands of or to people who look like us set the stage for the world we now live in and that what has gone before us grants us advantages or burdens through no effort or fault of our own, gains or deficits that others who do not look like us often do not share. We are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and openhearted enlightenment, our own wisdom. We are responsible for ourselves and our own deeds or misdeeds in our time and in our own space and will be judged accordingly by succeeding generations.” Isabel Wilkerson
Read more about the history of Pride month at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_Month.
Learn about Juneteenth at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
And read my friend/pastor’s latest blog here:
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