PRIDE MONTH or PRIDE ALWAYS
Every year part of the world celebrates our LGBTQ+ friends for the entire month of June. There are many parades, gatherings, and focused events honoring and hopefully, uplifting those folks. It is a valuable and needed focus for families and friends to also honor and support their special close members and friends.
To enrich this sharing, I checked my Thesaurus for the meaning(s) of “pride” and discovered several paragraphs of different meanings. The first two paragraphs were rather negative and demeaning, then I reached the bottom paragraph and felt relieved. There I found the terms that enriched our vision of Pride Month.
That paragraph included terms like self-respect, self-satisfaction, happiness, treasures, jewels, joy, and satisfaction! Yes, that’s our vision of PRIDE, helping our dear and special LGBTQ+ friends feel respected, helping all of them enjoy the satisfaction of who they honestly are, sharing in their happiness, and loving support of each other.
Then we also thought that our families with LGBTQ+ members also need to celebrate all month with warm and genuine respect and satisfaction that the entire family is happy and treasures all members as shining jewels, all individual, and maybe unique. But everyone is accepted, honored, and loved. A month of focus and celebration of family differences, all blessed and endorsed by God!
After thinking and pondering about PRIDE MONTH, Carolyn and I moved beyond this special month. We hope and look forward to our culture and faith understanding the genuine needs of our Kinship world, and we don’t need a PRIDE MONTH because we have shifted and flexed our feelings and beliefs so they are accepted and loved daily forever!
Let’s help our faith and culture support PRIDE ALWAYS! AMEN!
John and Carolyn Wilt
Family & Friends Coordinators