Welcome!

“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

Recent Posts

  • Immigration and the “R Word”

    I like traditional Irish music, and one of my favorite songs is “The Rambling Irishman,” made popular in 1976 by a group called The Wolfe Tones. One of the reasons …

  • A Question for God

    I’m participating in a program at our parish called “Alpha.” Its aim is to discuss basic questions about God – including God’s existence – about who Jesus is, or was, …

  • The Age of Confusion?

    I’m a big fan of wildlife and outdoor videos, mostly on YouTube. I recently watched a video showing half a dozen toddler bears exiting their den among boulders, seeing the …

  • RSVP

    My wife, Amparo, and I recently bought a car, not a new one but a late model. It seemed to make the most economic sense. What didn’t make sense as …

  • Faith Like Falling in Love?

    I’ve often quoted New York Times columnist David Brooks in these blogs because I find his columns unusually insightful. And, unlike many columnists in that publication and others, he doesn’t …

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Past Posts

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...

mm Ted

Palm Sunday

Mar 27, 2015

 PALM SUNDAY “ though he was in the form of God … he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … he humbled himself.” Phil. 7-8 A German...

mm Tom Carney

Where To Find Goodness and Kindness

Mar 19, 2015

Kevin Berthia, now 32, lived in the San Francisco Bay area 10 years ago. He had an infant daughter who was born premature and the medical costs for her...

mm Ted

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Mar 19, 2015

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT “… unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but, if it dies, it produces...

mm Tom Carney

When Good People Do Bad Things

Mar 12, 2015

Each week the insurgent group known as ISIS or ISIL seems intent on outdoing the cruelty and brutality of the previous week by some new videotaped outrage. The group...

mm Tom Carney

Where is Your God?

Mar 09, 2015

Believe it or not, this is a line from Psalm 42 of the Hebrew Bible. It’s a question the author of the Psalm says people ask him “every day.”...