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

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First Sunday of Lent

Mar 06, 2022

“Jesus … was led by the Spirit into the desert … to be tempted by the devil.” Lk. 4:1 “Temptation.” Even the word itself is provocative, glamorous, alluring. Because,...

mm Tom Carney

Does Anything Happen After Death?

Mar 03, 2022

“Yes,” goes the joke, “but none of them involves you.” Is there anything more difficult for humans than accepting the reality of death? That difficulty, say many people who...

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Ash Wednesday

Mar 02, 2022

“Remember … that you are dust and into dust you shall return.” Remember. The very first word we encounter as we begin the season of Lent. Remember. The very...

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The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Feb 28, 2022

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” Lk. 6: 40 In her book, The Hiding Place, Corrie...

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Who Do You Trust?

Feb 24, 2022

As a child, I recall being a bit confused about the word “trust.” There was a bank in our town – I believe it was called Empire Trust –...

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The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Feb 22, 2022

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Lk. 6:27-28 In his newest book, The Whole Language:...

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A Collective Yawn?

Feb 17, 2022

I recall as a child riding in our car’s back seat with my father’s Aunt Josie, a usually kind and gentle woman who visited us occasionally. As we passed...

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The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Feb 13, 2022

“Blessed are you who are poor.” Lk.:17 Powerlessness. That’s the “blessing,” today’s gospel is talking to us about. It’s the blessing we receive when we face walls we can’t...