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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 Ted

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 07, 2019

“… anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions, cannot be my disciple.” Lk 14:33 Several years ago, a movie directed by Clint Eastwood featured a very...

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Colbert on Suffering

Sep 06, 2019

I’m not big on hearing the opinions of celebrities on politics, religion or any field other than their own. But the recent interview of comedian Steven Colbert by CNN’s...

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Me or Us?

Aug 29, 2019

I recall the period after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans of every stripe came together in grief and determination. It was encouraging to experience this rare...

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Ceaseless Waiting

Aug 22, 2019

Few saints are better known than St. Augustine, who lived in the fourth century. He was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings greatly influenced the...

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Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 20, 2019

“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Lk. 13: 23 This question has been asked again and again throughout the ages. And it always seems to carry with...

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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 20, 2019

Sunday Reflections                             “I have come to set the earth on fire” Lk 12:49 Last week Jesus pleaded with us to “not be afraid.”But the words Jesus speaks today are frightening:Fire. Division....

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Shared Moral Blindness

Aug 15, 2019

I recently read “1776” by David McCullough, the history of the American Revolution. Early on, McCullough describes the supreme commander of the American forces, our first president, George Washington....

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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 10, 2019

                                    “Do not be afraid.” Lk 12:32 Four words: “Do not be afraid.” Four words: the keystone for any of us who are followers of Jesus Christ. Four words:...