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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

Recent Posts

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    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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Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Oct 03, 2020

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.” Violence. Lately it seems like everywhere we turn we are assaulted...

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Why Is Genuine Religion So Hard?

Oct 01, 2020

Most of us who are searching for God know that it’s hard to believe, and hard to be “good.” Many may have doubts about God’s existence, about the rationality...

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Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 28, 2020

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Is Religion Too Complicated?

Sep 24, 2020

During my time as a priest in rural Bolivia, where fundamentalist Protestants were making inroads into a traditionally Catholic population, I often thought about how complicated Catholicism is, making...

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True Grit

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An acquaintance of mine has always been a caregiver, in her profession and in her life. Recently, however, she has drastically reduced her contact with family and friends, telling...

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How Will You Be Remembered?

Sep 10, 2020

I’m a faithful reader of obituaries in the daily newspaper. If you weren’t sure that I’m a member of the “geezer” generation, my reading of obits confirms it. Obits...

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Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 04, 2020

“Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans, 13:10)  Henry Fonda.Remember him? In a chapter titled “The Evil of Silence,” Isabel...

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Is There a Sunny Side to the Street?

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I have the habit of singing to myself, humming or whistling as I go about my daily routine. Sometimes, a song gets “stuck” in my brain and is hard...