I fear no evil.

The valley in that old psalm is never described as empty. What gets promised is company through it, which is a stranger and more useful claim. Fearlessness in the dark has rarely come from the dark being harmless. It comes from a hand, a voice still on the phone, a friend who says text me when you're in.

Whatever you believe about the source, the mechanism holds. People walk into frightening rooms in company that they could not walk into alone.

If today has a valley in it, the question isn't whether you're brave enough. It's who knows you're walking it.