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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 Tom Carney

Does Everything Really Happen for a Reason?

Jul 05, 2018

Writing in America Magazine, Eloise Blondiau describes author Kate Bowler’s view of life before being diagnosed with cancer. “It was certainty, plain and simple, that God had a worthy...

mm Tom Carney

The Pope and the Baobab

Jun 28, 2018

Recent news reports confirm that the iconic baobab, the famous African tree that can live thousands of years, reach nearly 100 feet high and grow trunks that are 32...

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Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jun 27, 2018

“I forgive you.” These were the words spoken some three years ago by Nadine Collier as tears ran down her face. She was speaking to the accused killer of...

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Nativity of John the Baptist

Jun 22, 2018

“John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” Acts, 13:23   Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell writes often of “tipping points” in...

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What Religion Gives Us (That Science Can’t)

Jun 21, 2018

The New York Times recently published an opinion piece by philosopher Stephen Asma with the above title. It was among the newspaper’s most trending stories and elicited thousands of...

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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jun 15, 2018

“… the kingdom of God … is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it...

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On Not Being “a Religious Person”

Jun 14, 2018

Since an assignment years ago by the National Catholic Reporter to do a story on Focolare, a worldwide movement that works for unity and acceptance of diversity, I’ve received...

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Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jun 08, 2018

“He is out of his mind.” Mk. 3:21   “The most important thing in the world is family and love.” So, states the famous basketball coach, John Wooden. Michael...