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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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mm Tom Carney

Searching for God is Searching for Peace

Jan 10, 2020

Speeches by Miss Universe candidates drip with peace wishes. Popes pray for peace in their Christmas messages. The United Nations exists to maintain and promote peace. The Peace Corps...

mm Ted

Epiphany of the Lord

Jan 04, 2020

 “We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” Mt. 2:2 – 13 What a challenging story.  Unfortunately, we’ve heard it so many times,...

mm Tom Carney

Friendship: A Lifework

Jan 02, 2020

Bob McCahill has been writing an annual Christmas letter to the National Catholic Reporter every year since 1984. This year, his letter provided vignettes on his long-time mission in...

mm Tom Carney

The Six Wise Men

Dec 26, 2019

I’m sure you’ve heard the gospel story of the “three wise men,” sometimes called “the three kings” or the “magi.” Most Scripture scholars believe the writer of the Gospel...

mm Ted

THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH

Dec 23, 2019

“… the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” Lk. 2:22 Sacred Scripture is a story book …  a manuscript revealing to...

mm Ted

Christmas

Dec 23, 2019

“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jn. 1:13 “… the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her...

mm Tom Carney

How God Speaks to Us

Dec 19, 2019

In a blog back in 2014, I wrote about Tom Pfeffer, my sister’s brother-in-law. He was an extraordinary priest who was pastor of a mostly Hispanic parish before he...

mm Ted

Third Sunday of Advent

Dec 14, 2019

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the...