Feel with Neil

Funeral of Barbara Durso, 27 Jan 2024

See http://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

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Funeral Service Mass selections

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.

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

Communion Songs
Procession
Table of plenty (Schutte)

Meditation
I am the bread of life (JM Talbot)

Closing Song(s)
Lord of the dance (Carter)

-or-
Though the mountains may fall (Schutte)

-or-
City of God (Schutte) https://youtu.be/jLBQEUauY-I
-Alt to any above: Eye has not seen (Haugen) https://youtu.be/rRyOS0nZr7s%5D

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End notes
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Links to music

Opening processional
Gather us in (Haugen)

Responsorial Psalm
Yahweh I know you are near

Presentation of gifts
Hail Mary Gentle Woman (Cary Landry)

Communion procession
Table of plenty (Schutte)

Communion meditation
I am the bread of life (JM Talbot)

Closing recessional
Lord of the dance (Carter)

-or-
Though the mountains may fall (Schutte)

-or-
City of God (Schutte) https://youtu.be/jLBQEUauY-I

[alternative/additional to any above, if needed: Eye has not seen (Haugen)

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.

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To seem unbreakable and to wear a fake smile takes enormous energy – energy invested in untruth. Dishonesty. I was dishonest to myself about my unbreakability. I was dishonest to the world by my fake smile.

All the while I was burning that energy on untruth, I believed I was being “strong” and courageous. I thought “strength” meant being unbreakable. In fact, I have been broken for quite some time, and the reason I know that is that I craved and sought “being strong.” And everyone else told me, “You are strong,” or, “Be strong,” or, “You got this.”

Keep acting as if I were unbreakable? Keep acting with untruth and dishonesty toward my own self and toward others?
I misunderstood “strength.”
My well-wishers misunderstood “strength.” We got “strength” wrong.

What about the other kind of person? The kind of person who does not invest their energy in “seeming unbreakable,” and exhorting other people to also seem unbreakable, strong? Are their smiles real, not fake? Are they more truthful, more honest? I think so.

Are they less exhausted than I am?
I do NOT think so.

The difference between them and me is where we each invested our energy. We both invested it, so we are both exhausted. But we invested it in very different markets.

They invested their efforts in vulnerability to brokenness. To be vulnerable takes an enormous amount of energy, even when the risk has a positive outcome. But their vulnerability was true, and honest. Why are they not bitter and fed up with their exhaustion? It seems that the Jesus in the exchange above doesn’t want us to “seem unbreakable” or to wear “fake smiles,” so I therefore guess that he is uninterested in making us unbreakable or always happy (smiling).

I wasted my energy by anxiety – which burns energy with no productivity. Why was I anxious? I was fearful that my untruth and dishonesty would be found out, so I had to expend a lot of energy “seeming unbreakable,” while all the time actually being breakable and broken. A fake smile burns a lot of calories by hiding my secret. Shame is not a zero-sum game.

I wasted my energy by trying to control outcomes, instead of being true and honest about who I am, how I see the world, and how the world is.

They invested their energy in rising back up each time they were broken.

This Jesus in the exchange seems unconcerned with breakability or happiness, always and everywhere. But it also seems like a mistake to assume that he wants to carry us always and everywhere. My world would not seem right to me if – always and everywhere – in my wake were only one set of footprints which were not mine. That would strip me of my dignity. To be a child of his same father, made in that “image and likeness,” must mean that we are not pathetic puppets, but that we have extraordinary worth, and therefore extraordinary dignity.

In the exchange above, we hear that he has waited for me to let him carry me. That means that he will not force himself on us as if we are inanimate puppets without him. He clearly doesn’t demand that we always be “strong” in the sense of unbreakable, or always smiling. Those are not conditions for him to carry us. The single condition is that we be willing. That we surrender. That we let go of our fake unbreakability and fake smile. That we repent (“change mind”) and cease our untruth and dishonesty. That we be, in a word, vulnerable.

I am flawed, breakable, broken, imperfect, in need of help. And so is everyone else who has ever walked this earth. I am NOT different in that regard. The one who will carry us insists that we confess this on our own. He will not rip our dishonesty and untruth from our grip.

The longer I cling to my untruth, the deeper I fall. Untruth is its own reward. I have burned such enormous energy maintaining this façade that, “I can’t do this anymore.” It is neither him nor his father who break me. It is “the world.” And I have created my own fake world. I have set myself up as unbreakable king of my world. And his kingdom is not of that world. His kingdom is within me.

His kingdom is within me? What the hell does that mean? It cannot be covered by my façade of unbreakability, if it’s inside. My protective shell of a fake smile can hide the kingdom from everyone else, but not from me.

An enormous portion of my life’s energy so far has been invested in fortifying my image of unbreakability, and defending that wall with a moat of fake smiles.

How have more self-honest people invested their life energy? They also get exhausted, and broken. But their smile seems not to be fake. Not at all. They seem to be more content with their exhaustion than I am. They seem to be OK with appearing breakable and broken. In a word, vulnerable.

It seems to take an enormous amount of life energy to be vulnerable. Brené Brown would indeed have us believe that “wholehearted” vulnerability requires enormous energy, but that burning that energy exposes us to enormous goodness. Then, the stories we tell can be true. We can speak our truth. And the true truth is the only truth that sets us free. Free to be content about how we have spent our life energy. It does not matter whether our investment succeeds or not. We feel content regardless of the outcome.

We can surrender control. This *is* vulnerability. It costs energy, but… When we are vulnerable, we are open to a share in the energy other more truthful people are expending. We don’t have to waste our energy on the ridiculous façade that, “No, that’s OK. I’m fine. I got this.” Of course, the most profound tragedy of that untruth is that we fool no one but our own selves. In fact, people who have spent their energy more honestly than I have are people who, no matter how hard I tried to make it seem, knew I was breakable and broken. Knew my smile was fake.

As I tried to show the world how “strong” I was, and how happy I was, so much of that energy was being spent on no one but me. My defenses. Not on those people whom I imagined that I was helping. While I thought I was giving giving giving, I was also burning energy to appear as “the boy who seemed unbreakable.” for so very long, I resisted the confession that, “Jesus, I can’t do this anymore.”

In the exchange above, the response of this ever-kind Jesus was, “Daughter, I never wanted you to.” A less kind Jesus might also have added, “And you never really were anyway.” You were never totally unbreakable. And you were rarely happy enough to smile. He knew that, and most of the people in my world also knew that. It wasn’t honest. The whole time I was giving giving giving, I was also hoping or expecting that I would receive receive receive in return. That’s not what I was thinking or believing at the time, but now I know.

I don’t like to think of myself as resentful, but that is what I have confessed. “I can’t do this anymore.” I thought that my giving giving giving was love. I thought that my seeming-strength and my smile made me seem loving and kind. I did not know that, not only was vulnerability OK, but vulnerability was *required* if ever he were to carry me. I got love wrong. My energy had been spent largely on me, not others. It was poorly invested, but it was a lot of energy, and that’s why I feel exhausted and feel like I can’t do this anymore.

In large measure, that giving giving giving was actually selfish. My smile mask meant that people thought I was happy, or at least OK. But I secretly resented them for not asking me how I am. I resented them for not insisting that I accept their help. All of which, when you look at it this way, and with objective honesty, is insane. I believed that relationships were give-and-take. That relationships always demand compromise. That relationships are, in a word, reciprocal. In another word, transactional. My expectation was that if I give give give, I will also receive receive receive.

What might this Jesus character – who apparently never wanted me to do what I was doing, and who apparently is entirely willing to carry me – have ever said about giving giving giving and receiving receiving receiving? All along, I’ve known damn well what he said about giving in the gospel records: Do so without thought of receiving. Do not let the left-hand know what the right hand is doing.

But I’m only human. How could I honestly give without thought of receiving? Well, I’ve confessed, “I can’t do this anymore.” I do not have energy for maintaining this untruth that I can give give give without thought of receiving. It seems this Jesus wants to carry me until I can recover some more energy. After that, how will I invest my energy? Well I combine my energy with his, and with all the people who do not pretend they are unbreakable?

This Carrier character has exposed there are enormous chunk of my life energy was not love. That I got love wrong. How do I get love right? I hear it with my ears, and I know it with my head, that I should give without expectations. That I should love without conditions. Will that make me unbreakable? Will that put an honest smile on my face forever more?

Hell no! That’s ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous? Oh my, the answer is so blatant and so simple. Do you want the world to know you by your words, or by your actions? I’ve mentioned the words of this Carrier. What of his actions? And I don’t mean all of the detail and minutia of all the actions he performed – the healings, the miracles… What was THE BIG ACTION that summarizes the story of his life? I would put it this way:

Be vulnerable, and die.

For me, and for all of us whom he would carry (which is everyone, ever), it seems he will allow us to reverse that. To die, and then be vulnerable. The death is the death of the ego. “I can’t do this anymore… On my own.” And now, once again, in that context, with the addition of “…on my own,” the response comes:
“I never wanted you to, I’ve been waiting…”

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Neil D. 2024-01-23 [5 days after The Carrier carried my own mom to his home, which is no less hers]

For more on The Waiting Carrier watch Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel condensed here
and/or see my poem about wasting my life’s energy to bring me to the now, so that I could be carried, with one set of footprints in my wake, until he sets me back down on my own feet, vanishes, and leaves me to hear the call he has always wanted me to hear, in My Advent Prequel To Footprints (you can also watch it narrated here by me, or here by an AI voice)

Stitching together some seemingly unrelated sentiments I heard lately…

I can’t, or don’t want to be, grateful for my pain. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Gratitude for a poisonous person. What an intriguing paradox. Are we not supposed to be grateful only for “good” things?

I woke up and forgave them. I think because I also forgive myself.

The bitterness of biting dark chocolate.

How do you know there’s a god? “It’s a feeling in my heart.”

The chirp of a cat as I reach to pet it.

Gratitude is always there, somewhere underneath. Sometimes it’s overshadowed by anger.

What’s a narcissist?
Am I a narcissist?
There IS a narcissist inside all of us.
There is a peacemaking pleaser inside all of us.

My heart is irritated and agitated and annoyed, so gratitude doesn’t appeal to me right now. 

Divinity hides in plain sight.

In how a robin on the lawn listens, then knows where to poke its beak to retrieve its worm.

Often said before, I don’t know what I feel. Don’t feel anything.

I’m thankful for their smell. And their limits and fight.

Gratitude for a poisonous person?
Are we not supposed to be grateful only for “good” things?
“Knowing there is a God is a feeling in my heart.”
Only “a” feeling? Presumably a “good” feeling experienced in the heart, because God is only good?
Gratitude is experienced in the heart.
Forgiveness is experienced in the heart.
Are loneliness and emptiness experienced in the heart?
Is anger experienced in the heart?
I wouldn’t wish my pain – experienced in the heart – on anyone.
Is fear experienced in the heart?
Divinity hides in plain sight.
God is everywhere.

What’s *your* conclusion?

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Neil D. 2023-11-18

A part of me wonders how much and how often a self-serving cognitive bias leads me to perceive my contributions to this world with distorted grandiosity. An inflated ego.

I maintain that the ego is, in and of itself, a neutral and necessary sensor of our separateness from other agents in the world. It informs us that we are unique individuals, and with that power of agency comes some nontrivial responsibility.

So, a part of me wonders how often cognitive distortions mislead us into underestimating our agency. We hail the virtue of humility and condemn hubris, so that we abide in a tension in which our ego seeks credit while we simultaneously reject credit to honor the virtue.

This is the tension in the acceptance speeches of Oscar winners. The speaker is being celebrated for winning a contest, and during their speech, they join the new contest, which is to thank as many people as they can before the timer goes off. The audience listens to judge them on the linear spectrum from gratefully humble to egotistically arrogant.

This impulse to credit others with our own success is not at all ethically misguided, is it? As the spotlight shines on the winner, even we lowly moviegoers feel part of the victory (“That was a great movie!”) or loss (“That movie sucked, this one was way better.”). This is an inflated ego, a little too attached to the paradigm of winning and losing, missing the larger truth playing out, often put more simply by sages and gurus and mystics:

We are all connected.

Someone gives power to Hollywood, and someone gives power to governments. To corporations, to religious institutions. Those someones are us. Yes, once a threshold of power is achieved, the power seemingly becomes larger than the someones who find themselves powerless to affect the power any longer. After that tipping point, we each hope that the institutional power will be used to benefit us someones – that the spokesperson for each of those powers will give a Thank-You speech remembering us lowly moviegoers. “Don’t forget me when you’re rich.”

This is how that personal tension between humility and egoism is translated to a much larger worldly tension between serving the common good and maintaining power. What are we individual moviegoers to do? All become activists? All organize boycotts of institutional powers? We seem powerless to organize. Such organizing itself plays into the rules of building an institutional power.

Labor unions have their critics. Religious institutions have their critics. Nonprofits and NGO have their critics.

So we see the balancing of that tension play out at every level. But we forget, the way we “see” balance at any level has a solitary fulcrum. It does not matter if the level is our own world, the whole world, or even the whole of world history. It is only individuals who “see.” And we see from the perspective of our individual ego.

So what’s a lowly moviegoer to do?

As a fourth generation coal miner, Jimmy doesn’t see that he has been the beneficiary of an institutional power which passed an irreversible threshold because the world needed fossil fuels to grow. Now threatened by the need for a cleaner global environment, Jimmy still packs a lunchpail every day to get the paycheck so his daughter can someday go to college.

Policymakers aiming to obsolesce Jimmy’s job also aim ethically at reeducation and job retraining. Yet the 55,000 Jimmys don’t gleefully receive that complication to their lives. Who can blame them? We do, as the self-centered moviegoer. As if Jimmy and his ancestors made a morally inferior choice to pollute our world while fueling our comforts, and now we resent his entire family tree for… making our world a better place for everyone.

Jimmy isn’t stupid. But like every single one of us brilliant moviegoers, Jimmy gets sucked into the game of using the language that institutional powers depend on. Those powers give Jimmy a new vocabulary of environmentalist hate for the massively polluting coal industry in China, spiced with some nationalism about exporting jobs, and sprinkled with dark racist impulses. As if there are no daughters who want to go to college there.

Jimmy doesn’t talk about his son, who left coal country for brighter horizons, got laid off from his convenience store job in a dwindling town, couldn’t pay rent with his three other roommates required to afford a place to live on that wage. Another of his roommates got laid off, and they found ways to postpone their eviction while they illicitly medicated their shame until they were caught and sentenced to time. What was there to go back to when they were released? Coal mining? Acting careers? Political office? They’re now overdose statistics.

My ego doesn’t like to choose complexity when easier options are available. I have to be dragged into transformational fires unwillingly. Left to our own devices and will, we don’t change willingly. And if the world drags us too mercilessly, some of us must leave it, and take schoolchildren with us.

Like you, I wish I could see Jimmy on the spotlight’s red carpet, and hear his Thank-You list. I bet no one would cut his speech short, risking a decline in moviegoers. On the other hand, many of the celebrated Hollywood stories are indeed about Jimmys. Many pluck our heartstrings. But it’s hard to carry that compassion the next morning, as we carry our lunchpails toward our own cinemas.

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Neil D. 2023-10-29