“Thank you,” I said, before hanging up, and then I heard my friend Reinhard say, “Faulkner, however, said that for a writer, the basest of all things is to be afraid.” My mind quickly came to the conclusion Faulkner was drunk at the time. But perhaps he was thinking about writer’s block, the inability of a writer to do that which is most natural to him: to encounter fear, to face fear; a fear of being alone with fear... 

Roethke: “Fear was my father, Father Fear./His look drained the stones.” 

Auden: “Fear gave his watch no look.” 

Neruda: “When I was a young poet I was full of fear like a real rat in a corner.” 

 And what are we to make of Wordsworth, “Fostered alike by beauty and by fear”?

When denied or indulged fear will never stop feeding, eating away each opportunity..

But if we can embrace it, name it, and discipline what we fear, it is a source of strength.

The Greek origin of fear, πειράζω or peirazo, suggests a trial, test, or temptation.  It is to see if something unprecedented can be done.

One Greek dictionary offers, "It is to try, make trial of, test: for the purpose of ascertaining his quality, or what he thinks, or how he will behave himself."

In the Gospel of Matthew we read that Jesus was led into the wilderness for peirazo: To confront his fears, to know his fears, to decide what he thinks and what he will do.