It happens all the time. You open Torah and it lights up in your hands; that only happens because your hands are charged with the Spirit who expands the love in our hearts. You carry the pain of a generation and rather than recoiling from the horror, you only want to learn how we might love more. You have challenged me to become more of what is really me. It was you who told me to write these letters. It... Read more

Dearest One, I could not love all the others if I did not first love you. That’s the thing about the love that binds us and launches us into the world – it expands us and opens our eyes to all the good and true things we will do someday. At the moment when I despair you breathe in the pain and breathe out a love that inspires me to dream, to live larger than I think I can. God... Read more

How could I possible not love you. You’re a man who has dedicated all of his vocational energies to eradicating pain – every kind of pain from a stubbed toe, to a crushed disc, to an interior carrying pain from trauma. Not only do you dedicate all your time to it, you have found some success. You are actually changing the way we look at pain. In know it’s slow. The world simply doesn’t move towards change very fast. The... Read more

Dear Chahat, The fire in your eyes, the strength in your body, your creative sensitivity, your passionate hope, your incredible embrace – come closer, I want  to know you better so that I can love you more. I love you, Sam Read more

You are one of the greatest lovers I know. I’ve got to get better at writing these letters so the whole world can know what is beautiful in the life of a person like you. At the moments of my deepest angst you found a way to touch my soul, to open my eyes so that I could see what is real, and what is not. You who hate pain, watched mine in wonder as you sought to lead me... Read more

Dear Z, How can one little boy bring so much light and life into the world? It’s like I held you and I knew that the love of God had connected us somewhere deep. You’re little tiny body squirmed a bit but you knew, you knew I loved you and I do. I love you enough to let you scream at me because life can be difficult and so much is outside your control. How are you to know that?... Read more

I love you. I have from the day I met you. You are stunningly beautiful. You must get tired of hearing it, (and yet you let me say it and smile when I do). But it’s not that; there are plenty of nice shapes around. My heart doesn’t open to all of them. No, it is that you open your heart to me and you let me touch yours. What a gift. When I’m with you, even on the phone,... Read more

When I see the joy in your eyes I feel joy in my heart. When you say I love you even in that off-handed way we do I feel a depth connection that makes life right and why? Because you are alive with love, you always have been. The little boy you were was gorgeous, always caring, sensitive. And the wisdom is stunning. Your wisdom has been with you from the very start. Where did it come from? It could... Read more

Declaring our love is a spiritual practice. Perhaps it is the most important practice we can do today. It seems to me that God’s love has been somehow shut up inside me these last months. Maybe that’s why I’ve not written much. So I’ve accepted a challenge from my friend, Marc Gafni, to write a love letter every day for 90 days. “Our love lists are too short,” Marc says. So the love declared will not only be for my... Read more