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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

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Past Posts

mm Ted

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

Jun 08, 2020

“Brothers and sisters …. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet...

mm Tom Carney

People Who Do the Hard Stuff

Jun 04, 2020

“And now for something completely different,” to quote the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV show. I think we need a break from references, and blogs, about the pandemic....

mm Ted

Feast of the Pentecost

May 30, 2020

“Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”...

mm Tom Carney

Why Faith is Called a Mystery

May 28, 2020

Despite 40 years of being a pastor, John Chadwick, 73, a retired Iowa minister, said that in the face of the pandemic, he feels that his faith no longer...

mm Ted

The Ascension of the Lord

May 24, 2020

The historical bodily presence of Jesus has ended. Those disciples who walked and talked and dined with him; those faithful ones who followed him, watched him heal the sick,...

mm Tom Carney

Attitude, the Last of Human Freedoms

May 21, 2020

I recently mentioned to my wife, Amparo, that the self-quarantine during the pandemic feels like house arrest. Admittedly, it’s not quite that severe, but like many people, we haven’t...

mm Ted

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 15, 2020

“I will not leave you orphans …. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father.”  In today’s gospel, the disciples – the ones who had put all their...

mm Tom Carney

Calming Life’s Violent Storms

May 14, 2020

One of my favorite gospel passages, probably because it’s easy to see in the mind’s eye, is the story of Jesus and his disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee....