What more lasting way to express love than to put it on paper?

Our world bombards us all day every day with words, most we do our best to ignore, delete or click away with a remote device. Or we rely on others to express our feelings for us --...

How did you celebrate the holidays that marked the beginning of days with more light than dark, the birth of Jesus, the Maccabees reclaiming the Temple and relighting the everlasting light at this time of year: solstice, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza?

"Without darkness, nothing comes to birth. 
Without light,...

In a world fraught with violence and destruction, we need more than ever... beauty. Of course beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. How can we pass forward to future generations what we perceive and experience as beautiful? Why is it an important value? What sensations and spiritual connections...

Without succumbing to trite phrases, political slogans or a naive perspective, I suggest that we spend this month focused on the importance of providing future generations, our children and grandchildren, with a legacy of hope.

At the High Holy Days this year my rabbi, Simeon Glaser, gave a moving and...

"Legacy Tips and Tools" commonly focuses on specific legacy writing topics. As our e-list continues to expand, many new legacy writers are unaware of the basic principles of legacy writing. Others, who've been writing for some time, can benefit from a review to refine or renew their commitment to legacy...

"To have a friend takes time."
-- Georgia O'Keefe

All respect to O'Keefe, but friendship is about more than the priority of time. It takes values in common, trust, caring, tolerance, compassion, perseverance and even love. Friendship is built on mutual acceptance of our essential natures.

When...

For whatever cultural or natural reasons, at a certain time in our lives we become aware of a deep yearning for our family roots. Some of us, because we are a nation of immigrants, make pilgrimages far from home to walk the land our forefathers and foremothers did. Others of...

The power of everyday things carry both ideas and passions... emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory [and] sustain relationship.
-- Sherry Turkle

Ethical wills are about values, not valuables. But what about the category of "stuff" -- of value or not? You know...

When we reflect on our relationships, we can't help but recognize that we've said and done things that we wish we hadn't. We've made mistakes, mistakes that have hurt those we love -- sometimes without even realizing it, sometimes accidentally, sometimes through neglect, judgment or gossip, and yes, sometimes purposely....

Blessing our children is as old as Genesis. The ethical will was modeled after Jacob blessing his sons before his death (Genesis 49). Earlier, after Jacob stole his brother's blessing, Esau approaches Isaac to ask the question we all ask, aloud or in our hearts, no matter how old we...

How do we individually echo the larger changes happening today in nature (earthquakes and tsunamis) and our political worlds (revolutions throughout North Africa and the Middle East)?

Simultaneously the season is changing, replacing the deep stillness and hibernation of winter with the awakening that heralds spring. This transition returns the...

The ethical will is often described as a legacy of values -- differentiated from a legacy of valuables, which refers to the gifts of our material wealth. Courage, a value that we've seen practiced and heard much about at home and around the world in 2011, is what we'll concentrate...

The legacy of civility, beyond our personal hopes for our families and loved ones, is imperative in our own country and the world. We have just in the past month witnessed the tragedy in Tucson, the Jasmine Revolution in my Peace Corps home, Tunisia, and the ongoing struggle for human...

Writing legacy letters (spiritual, ethical wills) is a response to the deep human yearning in us to articulate and preserve who we most authentically are and by what values we have lived. How is this different from the Lascaux cave painters communicating to the future over 15,000 years ago? How...

Is it any wonder that in December, the darkest month of all, we yearn for light? The physical reality of long nights and shortened days reverberates through us, affecting our emotional and spiritual states, as well.

"The midwinter holidays originate in pagan rites to seduce the sun back from...

From a legacy perspective, we tell our stories for ourselves and as a gift to future generations. How does telling our stories benefit us? We need to know and express our own stories. Difficulties arise not because we have a story, perhaps a very sad or painful story, but because...

I'm preparing a personal legacy journey: to a land of friends, teachers and students, the heady aroma of jasmine blossoms, the musty odor of camels, the sound of the muezzin calling Muslims to prayer, Harissa, blood oranges, Safsaris, souks chocked full with all the necessities of life, the awe of...

This haiku, written in my journal this morning, originated from thoughts I've recently had that were less introspective, and more wondering about my legacy.

I've imagined dying suddenly, and watching from somewhere...

Susan Griffin's astonishing and perception-changing A Chorus of Stones clarifies the unavoidable and stark reality of how world events shape our personal values and lives.

I get it that in a moment everything I love and value can disappear in a cyclone, an earthquake, a tornado, a flood or...

Last month I had the opportunity to facilitate an all day legacy writing workshop in East Lansing, Michigan. There gathered 57 women and three brave men to reflect on their lives and values, to communicate and preserve them for future generations.

We began the day writing haikus to focus...