I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.

I think of Wangari Mathai in Kenya. If she started out saying she wanted to plant 20 million trees, she would have been laughed at. In fact, the foresters and the government did laugh at her. They said, "Villagers? Un-schooled villagers? Planting trees? No, no, no, it takes foresters." So she planted trees anyway.

Honest hope has an edge. It's messy. It requires that we let go of all pat answers, all preconceived formulas, all confidence that our sailing will be smooth. It's not a resting point. Honest hope is movement.

Little wonder that it can seem unthinkable to say "no, thanks" to the modern-day equivalent of our tribe - our fear-driven culture.

A life-long mission has been to counter the notion that political engagement is the spinach we must eat in order to have the dessert of freedom.

[Fear] means that we are human beings walking into the unknown, and that we are risking breaking with others for something we believe in.

The problem is that our whole tribe - if you will, the larger community of humanity itself - is on a death march ecologically and in terms of the intensification of violence and conflict.