On my way to communicate better with my friends — Today is Day 270 of my journey to learn Haitian Creole. I took on this journey for several reasons. One is that I love the idea of communication, of saying, writing, or singing an idea or a thought or a feeling in such an excellent way that there is a…

Now with charts! — When I started this journey into learning Haitian Creole in March of this year, my first thoughts were that learning a new language would be like assembling a set of snap-on tools: you learn some verbs and nouns, learn some pronouns, learn tenses, then adjectives/adverbs, then more complex sentences, and…

This is going to be a long post at the behest of some others who want to know what tools I have been using to learn Haitian Creole (kreyòl ayisyen). The first tool I picked up was Duolingo (duolingo.com, duolingo app on Apple/Android). This tool is an easy-to-use app that…

Maybe we could learn from our neighbor to the south . . . — Let me bring in a little history for you today. Let’s talk about Haïti . . . Haïti was once called the “Pearl of the Caribbean” because of its beauty and its profit for the colonizers. Of course, that profit came at the cost of human misery, torture, sexual abuse…

Maybe we forget the story of the Prodigal Son’s brother — I hate to keep bringing out the guns like this (Narrator: No he doesn’t), but for so many years my evangelical pastors would tell me/warn me about the Corinthians (both of them, First and Second) who were breaking the rules of love (“sinning”) in their community meals (the “love feasts”)…

Maybe shouting at our neighbors is not the answer — Years ago (and I mean years ago!) Barry McGuire sang a song about the necessity of being transformed by the touch of God in our lives. …

To know people better, learn to speak their language — Where were you 91 days ago? 91 days ago I picked up a course in Duolingo to learn a new language. Along the way, I discovered that I really needed a tutor, so I hired one through italki and have been meeting with him twice a week for an hour…

Your Black friends are asking for dignity and empathy, not words and feelings — I saw enormous pain this weekend in #Buffalo. I saw weeping and fury and despair and the dull feeling that comes after having had to feel too many things too much for too long. It’s a breaking point. I have my Black siblings asking us — asking me — why…