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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-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 21, 2018

“Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it …” Mk. 9:36 We humans crave power. We all do. We love titles and...

mm Tom Carney

Compassion: The Secret to a Life of Faith?

Sep 20, 2018

A young man who wanted to leave a gang came to see Gregory Boyle, S.J., founder of Homeboy Industries – a gang intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program in Los...

mm Ted

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 16, 2018

“Who do people say that I am? …. Who do you say that I am?” Mk. 8:27   Some time ago, a priest was telling me about a church...

mm Tom Carney

Pleading Uncertainty, We Flee God

Sep 13, 2018

A man and woman from Washington, D.C., who quit their jobs to bike around the world, were killed in an attack in Tajikistan a few weeks ago. The couple,...

mm Ted

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 08, 2018

  “Be opened!” Mk. 7:34   Anthony de Mello, a famous Indian Jesuit, used to tell the story about “disciples gathered around their master, asking him endless questions about...

mm Tom Carney

Honest Talk on the Benefits of Faith

Sep 06, 2018

Gerald Waris, my lifelong best friend, and about 34 of his cousins recently held a reunion in which participants were invited to share memories of their childhood and their...

mm Tom Carney

The Church as Museum

Aug 30, 2018

In the book, “Young Adult Catholics, Religion in the Culture of Choice,” the authors include a wealth of data on attitudes and beliefs of a range of young people,...

mm Ted

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Aug 30, 2018

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Mk. 7:6   I’m a hypocrite. The meaning of that word comes from what ancient...