What You Learn About Love When It Gets Taken Away: A Campfire Conversation with Sam Harris

Sam Harris spent 24 years, 8 months, and 10 hours in prison. He came home on July 1, 2024. And one of the first things he told me around a fire in Virginia Beach was this. He expected relief when he walked out. What he found instead was that there was more hatred and anger out here than there had been in there.

I've been sitting with that ever since he said it.

In this Campfire Conversation, Sam and I talk about what love looks like when it gets stripped away. About what it means to miss something so ordinary you didn't know you needed it until it was gone. About rebuilding connection inside one of the most fear-based environments we've ever created.

We also talk about what Sam is building now. He works as a peer navigator with the Suffolk Public Defender's Office. He co-leads the Re-Entry & Recovery Alliance. He goes back through the gates of the facility where he was held to facilitate a program he started while still serving his sentence.

And we talk about what it means to lead with love when fear would be so much easier. A courthouse hallway. A room with 80 men and no staff. A chance encounter with a senator he watched for years from the inside.

Sam's story is one of the most direct answers I've found to the question this adventure keeps asking. What does it actually look like when a man chooses love over fear? Not in theory. In practice. Every day.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org