Suffering demands a fix. We lie to ourselves

We all suffer. You are suffering. Many currents in our culture see suffering as a problem that needs solutions and fixes. I do not agree. As logical as that might seem to some people, I suggest that logic is very, very ill. And it makes us more ill – mentally, literally – and spawns more suffering. It is not at all logical to think that suffering requires any solutions. Nor that all suffering even *has* solutions.

One great thinker (and actor) suggested that to suffer willing is a supreme act of love. When we undergo suffering but want to fix it or escape it, we are not undergoing it willingly. Unwilling suffering is equal to our collective notion of what hell means.

Another supposedly great thinker called lovingly suffering the “opiate of the masses.” I  don’t think he was a very great thinker at all. I rather think he was an emissary from hell. And today’s postmodern neo-Marxists are deputies of Satan who would have us believe that we suffer because it is our victimizers who are evil. Isn’t that a nifty trick? The great deceiver can never deceive greatly unless the deception can be easily mistaken as truth.

What logic *actually* shows us is that every attempt at fixing suffering causes more. Logic shows us how effortlessly easy it is to cause more suffering – infinitely easier to cause more suffering than it is to endure the suffering that is given us to endure.

“What we fail to transform, we transmit.”

Every time and way you willingly take on the suffering that has been specifically dealt to you is an act of profound and supreme love. 

That is why suffering is so excruciating! 

Yours is yours alone. Therefore cannot actually be shared. You yourself must “take up your cross”; no one can substitute for you. You’re an essential stitch in the fabric of reality. If you abdicate your responsibility for your own cross, you transmit that suffering onto others. Supreme and profound love is merely acting out all you can be.

If you are convinced that suffering is a condition that you should fix, or escape, go ahead and try, and tell me if it doesn’t deepen.

We are not made to fix or escape all suffering. It is not our nature.

To live in harmony with others – it is plainly logical to see – requires and demands suffering in some forms.

Is this not entirely clear to you? Think on it honestly until it is. Every act of authentic love that you have ever performed is necessarily an act of sacrifice. And what is sacrifice, except undertaking suffering willingly?

No sacrificing in the world, no suffering in the world, no love in the world.

Every act you have performed to alleviate suffering in the world amounts to sacrificing something of yourself. You may not consider such sacrifice to be the same as suffering. That’s your perspective or delusion, but it doesn’t mean that not every sacrifice involves suffering. 

The greater the willing sacrifice, the greater the willing suffering, the greater the willing love. 

So, I don’t wanna hear any more about God wanting us to be happy. God didn’t make us to be happy. That is not our nature. God made us to love and to be loved. That is our nature. And until you can equate happiness with suffering, love will be something you try to find, how? By fixing and escaping? You think that a path toward love? Is that really your experience of love? Does that seem logical, rational, reasonable? 

To find the deepest goodness, fix and escape badness? No wonder depression and anxiety are rampant. We seek an out from the human condition because that condition involves suffering. How does that make more sense than the truth that our human nature is to love and therefore involves suffering?

To say that the truth has been revealed implies that it was so completely hidden that it could never be found lest it be magically revealed. I don’t know why those ideas are linked. It is not at all logical. We cannot come to know something that we are incapable of knowing. If we can know it, it is because we are capable of knowing it.

The revelation that profound love involves profound suffering wasn’t something we didn’t know. Deep down we knew it and know it. It was just something we didn’t *want* to know – something we didn’t want to be true, something we wished weren’t true. In that sense, what was revealed is how deeply we didn’t want to know it. How deeply we wished love could be free of suffering. 

I’m not sure there is possibly a deeper revelation than awakening to our lies to ourselves. The fantasy of loving without suffering is one all of us hold. Just as all of us carry shame, self hatred, and many other delusions opposing truth. We easily buy the story that we are trash and therefore require a savior who can distract his father so his father doesn’t notice how wretched we are. What a horrible, horrible distortion of the greatest love story ever. Because we persistently wish for love without suffering, our thick skulls required divinity itself to show us they are the way. Love and suffering are bedfellows. A truth inescapable even by the divine.

Wish away. That’s not the truth.

Pick up your cross and love shall be yours. You already knew that. 

Neil D.  2024-10-21

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RELATED

The power of change. Nietzsche, Jung, Rohr. “Authentic power is the ability to act from the fullness of who I am,… and the freedom to give myself away.”

A response to religious bribery (corruption). “As success is built on failure, love is built on suffering.”

Compassionate Reactions. “God loves us not collectively, but each tender and suffering soul at a time. That’s what the Christ shows us.”

More on suffering

Donate to a stranger with breast cancer

https://gofund.me/f25039ac

My beloved has a friend with breast cancer in need. My beloved appeals:

“Dear Friends and Family,

This is one of my oldest, dearest friends. I have known Amber since first grade. She is battling the toughest fight of her life. I am reaching out because she is in desperate need of help. Life is kicking her ass right now. I am asking for prayers and donations. About a year before her diagnosis, she separated from her husband. She moved into an apartment with a roommate who left shortly after her breast cancer diagnosis. She has been living in an apartment with only the essentials. No furniture to speak of. She took a job in a textile factory working the night shift on an assembly line. It’s a good job but there are times that she is too sick from the side effects from her chemo treatments to work. She recently tried to move to a smaller apartment. She cannot move in until their pest problem is under control, so she is in between homes right now. This summer, she was in a car accident. She was hit from behind and her car was totaled. Amber’s mother is ill, but is doing her best to help take care of her when she can. Her father was a Penn Hills police officer who died of cancer 20 years ago. Amber has a son, Zachary, who recently became a father himself to a sweet baby boy named Knox. She also has a daughter, Zoe, who holds her hand when she is sick. Amber is tough and proud, and I have never known her to ask for help. So I’m asking for her and with her. All prayers and any donation will help. I am sending this to everyone I know and ask that you do the same. Please, please, please pass this on. Much thanks and gratitude.”

https://gofund.me/f25039ac

“Blessings” are horrendous and offensive. Descartes

The deepest and most insidiously profound evil is the evil that best masquerades as goodness. It seems “good” to “count our blessings.” It isn’t. It’s evil. It is how The Father of Lies is so successful at deception and bankrupting human souls. By appealing to that which is not good or bad in itself, but which we all have as necessary to our existence as unique individuals. Comparison is its fuel, and the engine is

Ego.

…

‘Count your blessings’

I can understand how this meme might be “positive,” to inspire practicing an attitude of gratitude, especially to someone with an ‘external locus of control’ and tendency to compare.

Soothing the low feelings of sadness to uplift a deflated ego.

I can see its appeal as a first step in therapeutic recovery, but, I have to call bullshit. It’s a mindset that can keep one stuck in the superficial early steps, because, spiritually, it is abominable – as is any therapy that manipulatively neglects the human spirit in favor of ego appeal packaged as self-esteem.

It horrendously encourages development of a superiority complex as a privileged class. Can you see how profoundly offensive this is to the “someone-else” dreamer? So how can it be anything except codependent on materialism and spiritually bankrupt?

Authentic gratitude is never, ever based on comparison.

How perverse is it to be thankful we’re not as bad-off as someone else? We are blessed because God favors us over them. The evil horror of “prosperity gospel.”

That’s nothing more than a manipulative mindfuck to elevate one’s ego above one’s spirit.

Authentic gratitude is, therefore – I contend – much rarer than the average person appreciates.

Average notions of gratitude reek of this false, ‘comparison’ flavor. An external locus of control means, quite simply, that we value our self only by the standards which others erect. That’s a fancy way of saying “comparison” – which isn’t only unhealthy, but spiritually evil, despite common reliance on it by our religious cultures, which are, in that regard, evil. It’s not just prosperity gospel preachers; it’s any dogma which suggests we merit God’s favor by what we do, to earn and deserve. It is why we get love so wrong. We are twisted by indoctrination and social conditioning to expect reciprocation of our good deeds and goodwill.

We are told in virtually every way of the world that this is how God loves, so why shouldn’t we? I need to improve so that God will love me more. So that my loved ones love me more. And my loved ones need to improve so that I can love them better.

Comparison is competitive egocentrism, and profoundly immature emotionally.

Yes, I appreciate that this criticism of the meme sounds extremely harsh on its surface. Yet I think an effective way to examine its fundamental wrongness is by deeply considering a sort of “survival guilt” evoked in response to not “counting our blessings” as the meme encourages. To illustrate, here’s a possible reaction to this meme:

“I try to practice an ‘attitude of gratitude.’ But sometimes I mourn all that I’ve lost.”

By the meme’s horrendous principle, this person who has suffered loss then suffers MORE – when they recognize their ingratitude. They don’t want to be like the “someone-else” dreamer. Shame on them for not being thankful for what they do still have, after their losses.

This evil “blessings” principle undermines and REVERSES the truth of authentic blessing and gratitude, of authentic grace. It is an untruth. Falsities never, ever serve and satisfy the human spirit. The human spirit accepts only honest truth, never denial. Only the ego accepts denial and untruth. That’s the currency exchanged when inflated egos seek control over deflated egos. It’s ego economy. Egology. Egonomics.

To “know” the deepest root truth, we must go to the deepest inner human “place.” Descartes fails us with, “I think, therefore I am.” The full human person also has the affective faculties of emotion – a form of knowing that’s both deeper and transcendent, at the same time.

The fullest truths we can “know” are by harmony of BOTH emotion and reason – never in conflict. This is why the blessings principle fails and is evil, and the false gratitude it encourages is not authentic. It preys on a dissonance between our logic (look how good you have it) and our low feelings, then preaches a privileged supremacy which rests on competitive comparison by logic, not love. It cannot be deeply true. It can only be relatively true. Comparison means “relative to.”

It’s not surprising that, since most of us get love wrong for much of our lives, most of us get gratitude wrong. When memes like this one dominate the landscape of common therapy, we shouldn’t be too ashamed that we don’t actually “know” what authentic love and authentic gratitude are. If you think that assertion is exaggerated, I remind you about the state of marriage in western culture, and drop the mic. Your objection ain’t got a leg to stand on.

…

Descartes sought to exclude relative truths and arrive at absolute truth, and bound himself to do so by ‘pure’ reason, without relying on emotions, of course: Reason is outside the realm of emotions. See the untruth here? We ARE beings with BOTH – logic and feelings.

When philosophical logic is ‘escalated’ to exclude the fullest human experience of being… well, it cannot serve the full human being. For thousands of years, philosophers have tried to excise our wonderful powers of reason from the drives of our body. Of course, every such attempt is bound to fail. Our mind is not separable from our body! This is how we are made. Those efforts are entirely artificial, and so, not surprisingly, of very little service to the human being with mind and body, brain and heart, ego and soul.

(If you’re interested in more about the mind-body question, I suggest you google cognitive scientist and philosopher David Chalmers; you can watch “closer to truth” YouTube featuring him for brief glimpses into his thoughts on updating the Cartesian philosophy of Descartes and mind-body dualism. For another modern scientific angle, find the current thought of Donald Hoffman on YouTube.)

What is wonderful is that Descartes did arrive at the deepest ground of authentic gratitude, grace, and blessing:

“I am.”

This profoundly deep and absolute truth litters both biblical testaments. Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas describes God as “being itself.” In the evil blessings meme, what does the speaker have in common with the ‘someone-else’ dreamers? Being. What’s the last name of every Human Being?😉 At the absolute ground of a human being is being.

Nonbeing is, of course, the deepest fear of being human. Biological death is equated to nonbeing when one excludes the deepest and fullest experience of being human, which includes the human spirit. In this regard, materialistic atheism is not a fully human belief, and so of course must be spiritually dissatisfying. It is “rationalism” and “materialism” and is not far afield of three millennia of philosophers artificially dreaming that our spirit is our mind separated from our body.

(If you don’t think Pharisaic Judaism and the legacy of Yeshua the Nazarene added anything new to that conversation, I gently encourage some real study.)

Authentic grace requires understanding of unearned and undeserved gift. For us to count any blessings, the prerequisite is being. And being is a grace itself. We did nothing to deserve or earn being. Therefore all which follows from being is grace, in no complicated sense whatsoever!

Our ego wants to believe that we earned or deserve our job, home, etc. If we lose those, it is the ego which mourns those losses only because it believes those possessions were earned or deserved. When we know in the fullest sense that we *can* know – as human beings being human – we know that is not true. It is not the ‘Lord’ which “giveth and taketh away”; it is this mortal world, this biological realm, in which our being currently is. Our ego, for now, feels only at home according to the ways of this world.

It is the ego which suffers when we mourn loss.

It, too, is the ego which can be consoled by a false attitude of gratitude.

We did nothing to deserve or earn being.

We can be authentically grateful for being, itself. If we also understand our job, home, etc. to be grace – undeserved and unearned – we can be authentically grateful, and do not have to have any sense of “survival guilt” for a gift we have not earned.

When we “lose” something we have not earned, is it truly a loss?

When we most fully and truthfully are present, living in the now, abiding in the moment, we of course have no awareness of our possessions. That’s what authentic happiness is. The average person knows this, yet lives in ignorant denial.

The average person knows plenty of materially wealthy people who suffer unhappiness. Our brain tells us possessions are not a key to happiness, yet we lie to ourselves and console ourselves by status and possessions. And we always will – each time we cannot displace competitive comparison by authentic gratitude for the grace of being.

We can’t build authentic gratitude unless the foundation of that building is also true gratitude for merely being.

We know this to be true when we more fully “know” by all of what we are.

Sadly, we have been conditioned to deny this easily knowable truth, to rely on our ego rather than our fullness. Unlearning that conditioning, unknowing falsities, is a monumental challenge. But therapy must lead there, or it’s not only false, but evil.

The human heart can never be satisfied by a bad means to a good end. You’re bigger than that.

We’re each bigger than anyone can grasp in any moment.

Practice at remembering that deepest truth is pretty therapeutic.

Or maybe not. Hell, I don’t know.

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Neil D. 2024-05-17 (4th anniversary)

Spiritual Journey Nonsense (Richard Rohr)

[3.5-minute read]

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations for February 18-23, 2024 focused on “Life as a Spiritual Journey” (Weekly summary).

This passage from another source was shared with me during the same week.

Here are my somewhat strange reflections on both, as a springboard into Rohr’s readings.

If you’re in pain, I know you don’t want to be there. But it’s important for you to hear gently, you must.

If you crave and cling to positive platitudes, I understand. But it’s important for you to hear gently, you can’t.

If you believe you can chart your path toward healing, I wish you could. But it’s important for you to hear gently, you cannot.

If you believe you will emerge from suffering by doing things right, it’s important for you to hear gently, you are wrong.

If you think you have succeeded at healing from your pain, it’s important for you to hear gently, you have failed.

I do not know why, but it’s certain to me that sojourners who have passed through an authentic spiritual journey have all of these things you seek. In the presence of these people, you sense a calm. They have no compulsion to tell you their story, and they will never tell you that you have been wrong. That is not their language anymore.

*Their* language is *listening*.

Picture yourself in the presence of one of these calm and calming heroes who have returned home after their journey. You ask them a “big” question and await their wise answer. They may pause, smile, sigh… They gather themselves, because they were distracted. By what? By YOU. They were listening to you so deeply, it takes them a moment to realize they have been asked a question.

And, most often, they do not answer. Not really. Not in the same language that you asked your question. How can it be that they were so engrossed in you, in your presence, that they were not preparing an answer for your question as you spoke? Their answer to your question is their listening. Quite a paradox…

You sense a calm in their presence because they “live” in a much larger world. As you spoke, they were living with a much larger You than even you are aware of. Everything in the world in which they abide is larger than you can yet appreciate. And yet, it is the same world as yours. It is the same You that you yourself are aware of.

These are not the authors of platitudes or self-help books. They share wisdom through the language of their Life. Their world is larger, so books won’t do. Their world is larger, so answers won’t do. Already they know that you are failing, that you are wrong… For they also know that they are failing and they are wrong, but they are not obsessed or concerned with it, or fearful about it, as you are.

They do not wish to withhold any answer from you. Nor do they judge that you cannot grasp some profound wisdom they would offer. That doesn’t occur to them. That’s why you feel calm in their presence. And that’s why *they* feel calm in *Your* presence.

As You share in their world – their Life – by their listening to you, you too sense the larger You who lives there. And the “there” is not somewhere else. It’s right here. Your “big” question attempts to take them elsewhere, and that is why they have paused. Through their journey, they have long lost interest in elsewhere, and are whole, right here. Wholly here, and holy here.

Life is no longer about them. They are about Life. Their presence is soothing because they have a life energy, unleashed by nothing they have done, but, rather, by work that has been done on them.

.
Neil D. 2024-02-24

On a mother’s love

Ain’t a one of us not born from a mother.

We know it to be perfectly fitting, for God began God’s perfect revealing through God’s personal Incarnation that very same way.

In fact, that revelation became public through the first miracle performed by the child-now-adult man, amidst the chaos and partying in Cana, at the order of his mom [John 2:3]:

“Son, they have no wine.”

Like a rebellious adolescent, Yeshua rebukes her in the very next verse, not even calling her “mother”:

“Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

He thought, like a teenager, that he was in control of his own identity and destiny and when he would reveal them. But he misunderstood. This was much more than an observant remark by his mom. How do we know? What happens next!

Apparently, his time *had* indeed come, and it was his mother who determined the time to set her child free to be who he was.

He was mistaken about who would determine that.

No child is ever free from his mother except to the extent that she wills and sets the child so.

We can say, on that occasion in Cana, Mary once again gave birth to this child – this time, she gave birth to the the revelation of who this Person is to the rest of the world. His cousin The Baptizer had done it with loud words. She did it with a quiet observation, and it seems to have taken a moment for her son’s need for control to subside, and surrender to what was clearly more a command than a remark.

The time *had* indeed come, and the teacher (“Rabbi, Master”) had been schooled. The rest is history.

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Neil D. 2024-02-04 (the wedding anniversary of his parents; mother d. 18 days prior, RIP)

RELATED:
“New Year’s Ode To Mothers”

Funeral of Barbara Durso, 27 Jan 2024

See www.hennesseysfuneralhome.com/obituary/barbara-durso for Visitation location, and please note the donation option in the Obituary because there’s no link to it, and note that the Visitation, mass, and catered lunch at 793 Jackson Ave. (must come! see below) are ALL within 1 block of Dursos.

Catered lunch across the parking lot from the church begins at noon, which is the same time the Funeral Service mass begins, so that visitors opting out of mass can go there immediately.
Catered Lunch, 12 noon – 4 PM
Salad
Rolls/potatoes
BBQ chkn, beef brisket, pulled pork
Warm vegetables

Funeral Service Mass selections

All songs can be played as a single YouTube playlist here while you enjoy the readings: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYCa2OvbyDLvpvhMLvSjegh1_cgdf7tW9

Opening Song
Gather us in (Haugen) https://youtu.be/IbNXqjwh8is

Reading I, Old Testament
(Jeremiah 31: 7a, 8abd, 9a, 12acd, 13) A reading from the prophet Jeremiah:
For thus says the LORD: Look! I will gather them from the ends of the earth, an immense throng—they shall return. With weeping they shall come, but with compassion I will guide them. Shouting, they shall come streaming to the LORD’s blessings: The grain, the wine, and the oil, flocks of sheep and cattle. They themselves shall be like watered gardens, never again neglected. Then young women shall make merry and dance, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will show them compassion and have them rejoice after their sorrows.
The word of the Lord.

Psalm
Psalm 139: Song: “You are near” (Schutte). https://youtu.be/WQX8ic2hsfs
[R] O Lord, I know you are near,
standing always at my side.
You guard me from the foe,
and you lead me in ways everlasting.
{1} Lord, you have searched my heart,
and you know when I sit and when I stand.
Your hand is upon me,
protecting me from death,
keeping me from harm. [R]
{2} Where can I run from your love?
If I climb to the heavens you are there,
if I fly to the sunrise,
or sail beyond the sea,
still I’d find you there. [R]
{3 optional} You know my heart and its ways,
you who formed me before I was born,
in the secret of darkness,
before I saw the sun,
in my mother’s womb. [R]

Reading II, New Testament
(1 John 3: 11, 14a, 18, 21-23) A reading from the first letter of Saint John:
Beloved, this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.
The word of the Lord.

Gospel Acclamation
(John 13:35:) “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Gospel Reading
(John 13: 31b, 33ac, 34-35. See end note.) A reading from the holy Gospel according to John: Jesus said: My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, so now I give you a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples:
If you have love for one another.
The Gospel of the Lord.

Prayers of the Faithful
(Maria McIntyre)

†That religious sisters and brothers, anxious about the things of the Lord, serve the Church and the world with holiness of body and spirit. Let us pray to the Lord,

†That civil leaders watch over the welfare of those whom they serve. Let us pray to the lord.

†That this faith community answer Christ’s call to serve the poor.. Let us pray to the Lord.

†For all military service members and their families. let us pray to the lord.

†For all nurses and health care professionals… Let us pray to the lord.

†For a greater respect and appreciation of children, born and unborn, and for the terminally ill, older folks, and people who need extra help in living every day life: that they may be welcomed, reverenced, and protected from all harm.…Let us pray to the Lord,

†That victims of violence and war experience the blessings of peace. Let us pray to the Lord.

†For the spiritual and physical well being of all peoples; for the sick and the dying, and all who are on our prayer list: that God will touch their bodies and spirits with tenderness and healing love…….. Let us pray to the Lord,
“For our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters and those who minister to all God’s marginalized children, that – in the words of Pope Francis – the church calls together all her children in God’s style of closeness, mercy and tenderness, we pray to the Lord.”
† For all in this community of faith, and our silent prayers (Pause)… :
For most Holy Trinity Parish: that we have a greater unity in the Church,
and we may be one in faith, one in hope, and one in
the peace of the Holy Spirit; …

For all who have died, especially my mom for whom this mass has gathered for,
…Let us pray to the lord.

our family members, our friends, and our fellow parishioners,
that God will open wide the door for them and welcome them to
the eternal banquet of Heaven…Let us pray to the Lord…

Song: Presentation of gifts
Hail Mary Gentle Woman (Cary Landry) https://youtu.be/RERoQ1biLdE

Communion Songs
Procession
Table of plenty (Schutte)
https://youtu.be/_t8O_PwPlKA
Meditation
I am the bread of life (JM Talbot)
https://youtu.be/__Mx-YLvUzw

Closing Song(s)
Lord of the dance (Carter)
https://youtu.be/P-LCIMWH0Nc
-or-
Though the mountains may fall (Schutte)
https://youtu.be/CnGnGBlBc1k
-or-
City of God (Schutte) https://youtu.be/jLBQEUauY-I
-Alt to any above: Eye has not seen (Haugen) https://youtu.be/rRyOS0nZr7s]

End notes

Reading I from the Old Testament
Jeremiah 31: 7a, 8abd, 9a, 12acd, 13, using USCCB translation at bible.usccb.org/bible/jeremiah/31.

Curly brackets mark deletions in Reading I from the Old Testament above:

7[a]
For thus says the LORD:
{Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The LORD has saved his people, the remnant of Israel.}
8[a] Look!
{I will bring them back from the land of the north;}
[b] I will gather them from the ends of the earth,
{the blind and the lame in their midst, Pregnant women, together with those in labor—}
[d] an immense throng—they shall return.
9[a] With weeping they shall come, but with compassion I will guide them;
{I will lead them to streams of water, on a level road, without stumbling. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, you nations, proclaim it on distant coasts, and say:
The One who scattered Israel, now gathers them; he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
11 The LORD shall ransom Jacob, he shall redeem him from a hand too strong for him.}
12 Shouting,
{they shall mount the heights of Zion,}
they shall come streaming to the LORD’s blessings: The grain, the wine, and the oil, flocks of sheep and cattle; They themselves shall be like watered gardens, never again neglected.
13 Then young women shall make merry and dance, young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy, I will show them compassion and have them rejoice after their sorrows.

Responsorial Psalm
From Psalm 139
“You are near” (Schutte)
https://youtu.be/WQX8ic2hsfs is based on segments of Psalm 139, in the Catholic lectionary proclaimed (years ABC) on the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist Mass during the Day (lectionary 587) (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062421-Day.cfm). Here is that responsorial psalm, and below it are the lyrics of “You are near.”
Responsorial Psalm
R.    (14)  I praise you, for I am wonderfully made.
O LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
    you know when I sit and when I stand;
    you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
    with all my ways you are familiar. R.
Truly you have formed my inmost being;
    you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
    wonderful are your works. R.
My soul also you knew full well;
    nor was my frame unknown to you
When I was made in secret,
    when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth.

The lyrics of “You are near” https://genius.com/Dan-schutte-you-are-near-lyrics. Inserted parentheticals specify the verse of Psalm 139.

[R]
O Lord, I know you are near,
standing always at my side (5,18).
You guard me from the foe (19-20),
and you lead me in ways everlasting (24).

Lord, you have searched my heart (1,23),
and you know when I sit and when I stand (2).
Your hand is upon me, protecting me from death,
keeping me from harm (5).

Where can I run from your love (7)?
If I climb to the heavens you are there (8)
if I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea (9),
still I’d find you there (8).

You know my heart and its ways (1,2,3),
you who formed me before I was born (13),
in the secret of darkness before I saw the sun (15),
in my mother’s womb (13).

Marvelous to me are your works
how profound are your thoughts, my Lord (14,17).
Even if I could count them, they number as the stars,
you would still be there (18).

Reading II from the New Testament
1 John 3: 11, 14a, 18, 21-23. Adapted from p.67, JM Champlin’s “Through Death to Life” 1 John 3:14-16, using translations from USCCB at bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/3:

Curly brackets mark deletions in Reading II from the New Testament above:

Beloved
{III. Love for One Another
11 For}
this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another {,
12 unlike Cain who belonged to the evil one and slaughtered his brother. Why did he slaughter him? Because his own works were evil, and those of his brother righteous.
13 Do not be amazed, [then,] brothers, if the world hates you.}
14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. {Whoever does not love remains in death.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
16 The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17 If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him?}
18 Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.
{Confidence before God.
19 Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before him
20 in whatever our hearts condemn, for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.}
21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God
22 and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.

Gospel Reading
John 13: 31b, 33ac, 34-35 (USCCB: bible.usccb.org/bible/john/13).
Curly brackets mark omitted words in the Gospel reading above.
The New Commandment.
31 {When he had left,}
Jesus said, {
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
32 [If God is glorified in him,] God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once.}
33 My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, {and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’} so now {I say it to you.}
34 I give you a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
35 This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.