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“Do Not Be Afraid … You Are My Dearest Friends”*

Toxic Fear is perhaps life’s greatest hostage-taker. One psychiatrist calls it a “disease of the imagination.” Fear and disabling Worry can start off like a tiny seed and, watered by thoughts that emphasize worst-case scenarios, grow into a virus-like fiend that ends up dominating our mental state. It then holds us back from our ability to enjoy nearly every dimension of our life: our talents, our work, our love, our play, and our approach to a life in the Spirit.

This website is dedicated to three major Defense Systems that can be effective in helping us overcome the insidious nature of fear, as well as other mental health demons like depression. It will also focus on how we can better live out our lives free of those persistent foragers that roam throughout the corners of our minds… relentlessly haunting us.

Those three Defense Systems are: Spirituality, Psychology and Addiction. All three of these provide newly developed means of delving into the root causes of fear and depression and other mental health disorders, and assisting people in finding improved pathways to freedom, joy, and peace.

“Do not be afraid” – a phrase found 365 times in Sacred Scripture!

*Luke 12:32; translation found in The Bible in Contemporary Language, Eugene H. Peterson

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Past Posts

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Cosmos Instead of Churchiness

Feb 14, 2016

Once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited....

mm Ted

First Sunday of Lent

Feb 14, 2016

“Jesus … was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” Lk 4:1 Temptation. Even the word itself is enticing, alluring....

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Incarnation instead of Atonement

Feb 12, 2016

Franciscans never believed that “blood atonement” was required for God to love us. Our teacher, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), said Christ was Plan A from the very beginning (Colossians...

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Fully Human, Fully Divine

Feb 12, 2016

Francis emphasized an imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, and not just the proving or worshiping of his divinity. Even Christian art changed after Francis; take a...

mm Tom Carney

Why Don’t People Find God in Church?

Feb 11, 2016

My friend and former classmate, Ted Wolgamot, writes compelling blog posts that are weekly reflections on the Bible readings used at weekend Catholic masses. His posts are found at...

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Incarnation Is Already Redemption

Feb 11, 2016

The alternative orthodoxy of Francis and the mainline orthodoxy of most Christian denominations largely have different starting points. Francis’ alternative orthodoxy emphasizes incarnation instead of redemption. For Franciscans, Christmas...

mm Ted

America Magazine: The Greatness of Nation

Feb 11, 2016

An article from America Magazine: http://americamagazine.org/issue/greatness-nation

mm Tom Carney

Will We Always Have Our Daily Bread?

Feb 04, 2016

Emily Triantaphyllis, a second daughter to my spouse and me since she became one of my daughter’s best childhood friends, has co-produced the award-winning documentary, Seeds of Time, which...