Book excerpt: Our brains are hard-wired to experience the emotion of fear. Yet "do not be afraid" is a common refrain from the Bible, used for both comfort and chastening. We have often treated fear as something to be dismissed or suppressed. Being afraid means more than simply fighting or running from a threat; to be afraid is to remember that something in life is worth living for. Whitehead helps us find the roots of hope in the soil of our fears so that we can form lives and communities of hope in the midst of a culture of fear.