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

  • Between Belief and Faith?

    Many people think that either you’re a believer or you’re not. If you’re a believer, they may say, you must adhere to a faith that is expressed in dogma and …

  • “Thoughts and Prayers?”

    On social media, and in person, many people seem to dislike the phrase, “You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” used when someone discloses a tragedy such as a death in …

  • “She Who Is?”

    I’ve mentioned several times in these blogs that I had a sort of awakening in my early 30s about my image of God. A homily by a young priest declared …

  • Does God Have Favorites?

    Five years ago, I wrote a blog called “What’s So Great about Being Poor?” “Nothing,” I wrote, “unless being among God’s favorites counts for nothing.” It’s true that poverty, in …

  • “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?”

    I’ve often written about my personal connection to Ireland, undoubtedly because all of my great grandparents were Irish immigrants and I’ve always been interested in them and their homeland. In …

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Past Posts

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A Church That Defends Science

Aug 07, 2025

For 10 years at a regional newspaper, I wrote about medicine and health, despite having a rather weak background in science. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief believed I would well represent...

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This is third and final blog in a series on an interview with Rowan Williams in the New York Times that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal...

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I’ve written about sexual subjects only a few times in the 12 years I’ve been writing this blog. Why? Shouldn’t every aspect of life be included among topics meant...

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Seeing Church as Family

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Years ago, a young work colleague told me she had stopped going to church and no longer considered herself a Catholic. She wasn’t very specific about her objections to...