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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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mm Tom Carney

Belief: The Least Interesting Part of Faith?

Apr 09, 2015

Although I’m not fond of describing faith as a “mystery,” I must acknowledge that it is, like “love,” a nebulous word whose meaning is difficult to nail down. It...

mm Ted

Easter Sunday

Apr 03, 2015

EASTER SUNDAY Christ is risen! Alleluia! These are the victorious words we shout out with gusto on this greatest of all feast days. But, in order to fully appreciate...

mm Ted

Thoughts Upon a Good Friday

Apr 03, 2015

  Thoughts Upon a Good Friday  (For the Children in the Morning)   Was it worth it after all? For all the pain and trouble, do they care? Your...

mm Ted

Good Friday

Apr 03, 2015

GOOD FRIDAY “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way….” Hebrews...

mm Ted

Holy Thursday

Apr 03, 2015

HOLY THURSDAY “Do you realize what I have done for you? …. If I, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet....

mm Tom Carney

Religion without God?

Apr 02, 2015

The search for God, to say nothing of belonging to a religion, has its costs. It requires sincerity, perseverance and patience, with oneself and with God. And it requires...

mm Tom Carney

Is the Pope Catholic?

Mar 30, 2015

(This article, by Tom Carney, appeared in the Des Moines Sunday Register on March 30.) Diego Neria was born female but had a sex-change operation eight years ago. He...

mm Tom Carney

The “Cities” Within

Mar 27, 2015

One of many widely propagated myths is that there is a basic conflict between science and faith. It is promoted on both sides, even though the tenets of neither...