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

  • Should the Church Cause Trouble?

    On the 24th of last month, many Catholics, and perhaps some others, observed the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Many of you may never have …

  • How Does God View Human Failings?

    One of the most embarrassing things that has happened to me occurred years ago when I took my father to his doctor’s office. He was probably in his early nineties, …

  • What We Really Want, and Need

    My wife, Amparo, and I were at a restaurant recently when a family that included a teenaged girl entered. She and family members were walking to their table, accompanied by …

  • Compassion as Weakness

    While in Colombia a week or so ago, I had an interesting conversation with a taxi driver. He was sympathizing with America’s “immigration problem,” comparing it to the onslaught of …

  • Knowing Right from Wrong

    One of my all-time, favorite movies was produced in 1989 and was entitled, “Do the Right Thing.” Produced, written and directed by Spike Lee, “the story explores a Brooklyn neighborhood’s …

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mm Tom Carney

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...

mm Tom Carney

True Grit

Sep 17, 2020

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...

mm Tom Carney

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...

mm Ted

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...

mm Tom Carney

Is There a Sunny Side to the Street?

Sep 03, 2020

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...

mm Ted

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 28, 2020

“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Mt. 16: 23 Several years ago, I...

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Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 28, 2020

“Who do you say I am?” (Mt. 16:15)  Today’s gospel begins in a very unusual way. It starts with a statement about geography, about a particular location way north...

mm Tom Carney

There’s Injustice, then there’s Structural Injustice

Aug 27, 2020

Most of us have experienced bullies, the kids who pick on other kids in school and other places. We’ve seen such bullies smack other kids, brazenly take a kid’s...