Love Yourself Enough

A Pride Month Post from Someone Who Is “Spiritual, Not Religious”

I came across this quote recently when a friend shared it and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. “Love yourself enough not to be threatened by other people’s Joy” Not because it's complicated. Because it's so simple — and yet here we are.

I want to talk about Pride Month. I haven't addressed it here on the blog yet this month and I need to, because silence starts to feel like a choice — and I want to be clear about where I stand.

Where I'm coming from

I grew up going to a Lutheran church in a small town. My family was never deeply religious, and somewhere along the way we quietly stopped going. Sunday dinners became our church instead — family around the table, that third space where you belonged just by showing up. Third spaces are really important and I often miss those Sundays.

As I got older, I found myself drawn to something different. Native traditions. Nature-based spirituality. The idea that the creator is woven into the earth itself — into the seasons, the trees, the way light moves in the morning. That felt true to me in a way a pew never quite did.

I am spiritual, not religious. I believe in angels and in things that can't be explained. I believe we are called to take care of each other and the planet we live on. I believe Mother Earth deserves our love and our respect. That is my faith. It is quiet, and it is mine.

What I notice

For a long time — and I know in the scope of things history has not been kind, I'm not pretending otherwise — most people living their everyday lives weren't thinking that much about their LGBTQ+ neighbors. You might have had a feeling about someone. You might have known. But it wasn't a daily emergency. People were largely just living.

Then somewhere in the mid-2010s something shifted. It became political. It became urgent. The 2015 marriage equality ruling came and went — and some were very loudly opposed -but for most people, nothing in their actual neighborhood or daily life changed. Some though decided it was useful to make them feel like it had.

I think about that quote. Love yourself enough not to be threatened by other people's joy. And I think, what happens to a person when they are taught, steadily and deliberately, that everyone different from them is the reason their life is hard? What happens when fear becomes the organizing principle?

I'm not a psychologist, but I do know this: people who are genuinely secure in themselves — in their faith, their identity, their lives — don't spend a lot of energy being threatened by how someone else loves or how they present themselves and move through the world. For some, especially older generations, non-binary and transgender identities are genuinely confusing — something outside their frame of reference. I can hold space for that confusion. What I can't hold space for is the choice to respond to that discomfort with attack rather than curiosity. Discomfort is an invitation to look inward. It always has been.

Faith being used as a weapon

This is the part that hurts me most, the teachings I have encountered across traditions — Lutheran, Native, pagan, the red letters in the Gospels — they say the same thing at their core. Love your neighbor. Care for the vulnerable. Do not harm. The people living that out quietly are some of the most beautiful humans I know.

But there is a version of religion being performed right now that bears no resemblance to those teachings. It is loud and it is angry and it uses scripture the way a hammer uses a nail — to drive something down. And the people most often on the receiving end of that hammer are some of the most tender, brave, and joy-filled people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

That is not faith. That is fear wearing faith's clothing.

My table

To my LGBTQ+ friends, family, and anyone who needed to hear this today — you are not just tolerated here, You are wanted here. You have always had a seat at this table, and that will never change.

To anyone else who wants to pull up a chair — you're welcome too but know this: you come with an open heart or you don't come at all. This is not a place for preaching or persuading. It's a place for learning, for listening, for showing up as someone willing to grow. That seat is always available to you when you're ready for it.

Because joy is not a threat. It never was.