A project was due by the end of the day, and I needed to focus.

But I was already discouraged.

Earlier that morning, I had scrolled through my social media feed. The state of our divisions and polarization had planted seeds of distrust in my mind.

Who can you trust these days? I wondered.

I scanned the coffee shop and noticed two vacant tables in the corner. Two older white men were sitting nearby in a passionate conversation. I sat one table away and dove straight into my work.

Because of proximity, I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. It sounded like they were frustrated about Washington being a predominantly blue state and feeling stuck with certain policies.

And just like that, the seeds of distrust that had been planted earlier started to grow.

A quiet assumption surfaced in my mind:

Older white men frustrated about living in a blue state… that sounds like MAGA.

But i paused.

Meanwhile, I later learned something interesting.

From their vantage point, they had noticed a Black man walking into a Starbucks in Olympia wearing a hat that says “Dare to Be a Friend” and thought he seems friendly.

But in today’s climate, one can’t be too sure of anything. “He may well be MAGA too “ they thought.

So they were cautious too.

For about ten minutes, the three of us simply minded our own business.

Then something small happened.

A nod.

A smile.

A moment of eye contact.

And Mark stepped into courage.

He looked at my hat and said:

“I saw what your hat says… and I figured I should talk to you.”

That simple comment sparked a one-hour conversation.

We talked about where they came from.

Their career paths.

My work.

We shared frustrations about the state of our communities and our politics. But more importantly, we shared a longing for a different kind of leadership and a different kind of community.

I told them about my forthcoming book on befriending as a path toward healing our divided communities.

At one point Mark paused and said something that stayed with me.

“You know, when I woke up this morning and came into the store, I was discouraged and angry. But this conversation… it restored my hope. That’s the work. It’s hard, but I’m going to engage some of the people I have the hardest time with.”

The truth is, all three of us nodded.

We had all walked in carrying some level of suspicion.

Yet there was something unexpectedly healing about befriending strangers and sharing a longing for more supportive and connected communities.

I’m grateful for Mark and Peter (pseudonyms for privacy)

And yes— I still got my work done.

That one hour was not lost. It invigorated me. It sharpened my focus.

Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is pause long enough to be human with someone else.

A few reflections I’m carrying with me:

• How often do our suspicions and fears get in the way of connection?

• What might courage look like in everyday settings like a coffee shop?

• How often do we refrain from engaging because our to-do list is full?

• What moments of connection might be waiting for us if we simply pause and pay attention?

Sometimes the very thing that restores our hope is sitting just one table away and may look suspicious at first.

Like in a well-scripted romantic comedy, where two lovers who are madly in love with each other misread the signals, exit the scene too soon, and leave the audience wondering what could have been—so it is with us.

We too are collectively missing the chance of mutual embrace that could quench our longing for belonging.

Let me explain.

After twenty five years as a transplant from West Africa to the USA, by all accounts I have built a good life. By God’s grace, I lack nothing, and I am grateful for my wife, my children, and my community.

Still, every now and then I miss home—a longing stronger than my rational mind can suppress. I miss the sounds, the familiar smells, the nuance of the language, the food, and the people.

So I go on Instagram or YouTube and watch clips of my favorite African and French thinkers and authors. I listen to songs of my youth. The mastery, the poetry, and familiar melodies take me on a time travel. The memories and the rush of emotions trigger tears. Tears that betray my grief. A particular type—one that only comes from unexpected change, forced displacement, or closed doors.

In that private and vulnerable place, far from all eyes, I answer the critic within and without:

“Yes, I know. I have a good life—but I miss and long for home.”

Two longings. One ache.

That’s why as I watch one America who longs for home—reaching for a signpost that reads you belong too—I understand her and relate to her. Even if that signpost is as simple as hearing Spanish at the Super Bowl halftime show… or any language that isn’t English… and feeling, for a moment, I am not an afterthought. I am part of us. Home is here.

And as I watch the other America—the one who also misses home—I understand her too. I get her yearning for tastes, sounds, and ways that are familiar. Echoes of the past. Memories that can dress the wounds of loneliness, unrealized dreams, anxiety, and loss.

She is disoriented. Displaced in her own way. Grasping for any relics of the past—be it faith, music, or tradition, in all their imperfection—to remind her of what it felt like to belong.

Will they meet? Will they hear each other’s cry for home?

Or will they keep pointing fingers while retreating into their defensive positions and miss the moment again?

A befriending invitation

In The Way of Befriending, I contend that we find belonging in the courageous movement toward the other—unexpected acts of curiosity and compassion that disrupt two harmful storylines: learned helplessness—the belief that I am only a victim—and dehumanization—the belief that the enemy is the Other.

When these two scripts feed off each other, they tell a deadly simplistic story:

You are the enemy keeping me from home.

Befriending does not ask us to abandon conviction or our longings. It asks us to muster the courage to look in the mirror long enough to name the fears and assumptions at work in us—so they don’t quietly take the wheel.

Then it calls us to lead with curiosity: to stay proximate, to listen past the talking points, and to resist the reductionist storyline that says you are the obstacle to my belonging.

And finally, it asks for the courage to be compassionate—not sentimental, not naïve, but brave enough to move toward the other in ways that make room for solutions beyond our initial positions.

And maybe that is the invitation in front of us right now—not to win the cultural moment, but to redeem it.

A few reflection questions

• In the case of the Super Bowl halftime show, given the shared cry for home from both Americas, what does courageous engagement entail for you?

• What assumptions or fears about the “other America” have taken the wheel and are driving your response? What questions, if you asked, could lead to answers that change how you feel about the other America?

• What might a collaborative and mutually compassionate solution look like for a halftime show?

• And what would it look like—not from time to time, but as a way of life—to move toward the Other instead of standing against the Other?

Hosting the first annual Befriending Summit—paired with the weight of the world—had just about depleted me. I needed rest. So, contrary to my usual Sunday routine, I stayed home and watched the African Nations Soccer Cup Final between Senegal and Morocco.

The game had all the drama—on and off the pitch—that makes moments like these unforgettable. What brought me the most joy wasn’t just the match, but the WhatsApp thread buzzing with childhood friends scattered across the world. The commentary, the banter, the shared excitement—it stirred memories and gave me a fleeting sense of home.

When the game ended, I stepped outside.

And not a single soul around me knew about the match. Or the controversy. Or the joy I was carrying.

I was alone in it.

Alone in my joy. Alone in my experience.

Slowly, joy gave way to sadness. Sadness to defeat. A familiar thought crept in: It will always be this way. A one-way relationship. Me adapting. Me learning American ways. Me reaching.

I ended the day right where I started.

Then grace met me—unexpectedly—through a prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi:

“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

The words steadied me. They recalibrated how I was interpreting my experience. They reminded me that the effort to reach out—to be curious, to extend myself—was not wasted.

That belonging, at least the kind that heals, is often intertwined with sacrifice.

Countercultural as it may sound, it reminded me of something essential:

Befriending is leadership.

It can feel lonely.
It can feel thankless.
And yet, it remains a force for good and for healing.

In times of political unrest, protest, and deep uncertainty, this prayer feels especially relevant. It invites us not to grow weary of befriending—whether the ungrateful, the well-adjusted to privilege, or even those we might be tempted to call enemies.

It is a narrow path.
But it is a path that leads to life.

“The wound is where the light enters the body.”

I was reminded of this truth years ago through a coworker who triggered me deeply. He had obvious flaws—carelessness, a lack of emotional intelligence—which made it easy for me to point the finger outward. His comments made me feel small. Insignificant. Little.

But he wasn’t creating something new in me.
He was pressing on a tender place in my story—a belonging wound that had not healed.

I share this more fully in The Way of Befriending, but in my twenties I came close to pursuing a musical career. I came close—close enough to taste it. I was in conversation with Universal Records. Then, without warning, I was ghosted. The dream quietly collapsed.

What followed wasn’t just disappointment. It was disorientation.

Who am I?
Who can I trust?
What else am I actually good at?

That wound manifested in insecurity, a need to prove myself, and an unconscious search for approval. So when this coworker—through thoughtlessness—awakened those old questions, I reacted. Strongly. Defensively. What looked like anger toward him was actually grief in me.

All of it was compounded by stress, pressure, and working a job that paid the bills but starved the soul.

That unhealed belonging wound seeped into every part of my life. I became addicted to compulsively buying musical instruments—trying, in my own way, to keep the dream alive. I felt unseen and unappreciated at work. Inside, I was fractured.

Grace found me in an unexpected way.

One day, overwhelmed and distracted, I accidentally placed one of my favorite guitars next to a space heater. When I noticed it later, there was a crack in the back—right down the middle. A melody began looping in my head: right down the middle…

I wrote the song “Beautiful Scar” as I realized something profound: even a cracked guitar can still make beautiful music. I saw myself in it. Wounded, yes—but still valuable. Still capable of song. Inherently worthy.

But the guitar wasn’t the only thing that needed attention.

With a trusted friend, I entered an accountability journey—AA-style in spirit—where I began parting ways with the excess I never needed to soothe the ache. Since then, I’ve let go of twelve guitars.

Over time, I also made peace with that coworker—not by fixing him, but by owning my own story in our conflicts. I stopped asking him to carry wounds that were mine to heal. Eventually, I left that job—not in bitterness, but in alignment—to write a new story.

And that guitar?

By grace (and good insurance), it was given a new body while keeping the old neck.
Old and new, joined together.
It still sings.
And it still bears a scar.

A beautiful scar.
The birthplace of a new song.

🎶Live performance of “Beautiful Scar”

An invitation:
What if the people who trigger us are not obstacles to our healing—but unexpected guides?
What if befriending begins not with changing the Other, but with tending the wounded places within us?

In a world quick to react, judge, and divide, befriending invites us to slow down, tell the truth about our wounds, and allow light to enter—right down the middle.

That is where new songs are born.

These are the shadowy refrains we hear when othering takes hold—when we stop seeing one another as human.

In The Way of Befriending I share my own story of how slowly, subtly, othering can strip us of our compassion and humanity. I remember exactly where I was on September 11, 2001—one year after arriving in the U.S., still navigating this place of contradiction, hope, fear, and misunderstanding. I watched the attacks live on TV an

d blurted, “Now they will know what it feels like to export wars offshore.”

I cringe to remember it. That was not my proudest moment.

Steeped in my own convictions, hurt and frustration, mixed with a tinge of self-righteousness, I was more interested in proving a point than in noticing people who were hurting. My gaze was fixed on what Americans needed to learn—at the expense of my own objectivity and compassion.

But grace found me. When I saw the images of people trapped in rubble, I imagined what it would have felt like to be inside those buildings, on those planes. The abstraction receded. I remembered our shared vulnerability. Compassion returned.

Now, again, waves of dehumanizing othering have risen in our national politics in the wake of tragedy.

On January 7, 2026, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother, artist, and neighbor, was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis during a federal immigration enforcement operation. Federal officials claimed the agent acted in self-defense, saying her vehicle threatened officers. But video evidence and local officials paint a more contested picture. Mayor Jacob Frey and state leaders have sharply disputed the federal narrative, and questions continue about what actually happened as Renee’s vehicle moved to leave the scene. Her death has sparked protests and a national debate over the use of force, immigration enforcement, and the responsibilities we bear toward each other—not as abstractions, but as human beings with families and stories.

Here’s the painful truth: when we talk about people in heads-up phrases like “they did this to themselves,” we forget names, we forget stories, and we forget that every person’s life is woven into a web of relationships—family, community, care, harm, joy, and loss.

We drown in indifference, rationalization, or judgment—unless we resist.

Resist the undercurrent. Reach for compassion.

Reflection questions:

• Am I so focused on proving a point that I am missing other angles?

• What would it take for me to recognize that I have grown callous?

• What helps me recognize when I am wrong—and return?
  

A Befriending Resource: Three Cognitive Biases to Watch For

Read more

Like most journeys in leadership, this last year, as I dove into the sanctifying process of writing The Way of Befriending, it started with my own story. I had to take an inventory of my friendships and most importantly, evaluate the type of friend I am. As painful as it was to revisit relational wounds and longings, I had to wrestle with the following questions:

• Am I a faithful friend?

• Am I a truthful friend?

If we are to believe ancient jewish scripture, Ecclesiates (6:14-17) tells us that nothing compares to a faithful friend. Such a find is the medicine of life and the person who finds it, has found a treasure.

The thing about treasures is that they dwell in unexpected places. Old homes, and basements. Buried amid what we often disregard or consider worthless.
What a shame! What a loss when we miss out on a great find.

My wish and longing for us this year is that we diligently look for and find the life medicine of truthful and faithful friendship in unexpected places. And, that we be such a treasure to those who stumble upon us.

Here is a song I wrote titled a Friend To You!
Hope it inspires you to befriend and be that friend.

In my FRIEND framework, the E stands for Extend Grace

.

Not because standards don’t matter.

Not because mistakes don’t have consequences.

But because people matter—and we almost never see the full weight of what someone is carrying when they fall short.

Let me tell you why this matters so deeply to me.

Nearly a decade ago, I walked into a small campus coffee shop and ordered a drink. Behind the counter was a student I’ll call Katy. It was her very first day on the job. She was juggling college coursework, trying to make ends meet as a barista, and caring for a young child on the autism spectrum. That morning, she had just received a call that her son needed to be sent home early.

Stress was already overflowing.

In the midst of it all, Katy accidentally handed me a drink without the espresso. When I noticed and gently mentioned it, her face flushed. She apologized repeatedly and began explaining everything she was navigating. You could feel the weight of shame creeping in—the quiet fear of having failed before she’d even begun.

I told her it was completely okay.

And then I asked if I could give her a hug.

That was it. A small moment. Or so I thought.

Ten years later, I walked into a training room to facilitate a session with a state organization. As I scanned the room, a woman looked at me and smiled.

“Parfait,” she said, “you probably don’t remember me—but I remember you.”

It was Katy.

She reminded me of that day. Of the coffee. Of the mistake. Of the hug. She shared how her son is now thriving, and how she now works in a leadership role within state government. And then she said something I will never forget:

“That was exactly what I needed that day.”

Friends, extending grace disrupts shame.

It interrupts the harsh inner scripts that tell people they are disposable, incompetent, or unworthy of belonging.

To belong is to matter.

And to matter is most powerfully felt when grace shows up unexpectedly.

A gentle practice for this week:

• When your Starbucks order is wrong, extend grace.

• When someone blocks traffic after taking the wrong turn, extend grace.

• When a server forgets an item or gets your order wrong, extend grace.

You never know what someone is carrying into that moment.

May we be people who choose befriending over blame— and grace over the iron fist.

My name is Parfait Bassalé and I am a singer-songwriter, a Christ follower, and a reconciler.

Forty-five years ago, my life began in Benin Republic. From there, my childhood carried me through Niger and Senegal. I didn’t know then that this journey would eventually take me across the ocean to the American empire.

All this moving—this regular uprooting—made me long over and over again for a place I could finally call home. That experience of displacement freed me from the grip of nationalism and tribalism and pointed me toward God.

Faith and friendships across racial, cultural, economic, and religious lines have shown me that belonging is often found at the doorstep of the Other.

Fueled by my own story and my theological exploration of God’s befriending of humanity in the midst of despair, loneliness, and error, I am now on a mission:

to inspire and equip as many people as possible to befriend the Other.

So join us if, like me, you long for a world where “the Other” can be at home in your presence and through your actions.

After I sang this song at a workshop recently a participant commented: “Home is me. It is you. It is us”. The room was silent after her comments. It was an invitation. A dare. A challenge for everyone in attendance to reflect on their track record with making others feel at home.

1. Why this, why now

Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

We are stuck. Stuck in ideological silos, culture wars, and identity politics. As scholar Robert Putnam reminds us, we have become experts at bonding within our tribes and novices at bridging across them. In that fog, we fall back on simplistic, reductionist boxes and labels for one another.

For example, as a naturalized Black immigrant:

• I am “only a Black person” to some white people.

• “Not Black enough” to some African Americans.

• “Just an immigrant” to some American nationalists.

Despite extraordinary technological advances in the twenty-first century, we still have not transcended the tired Us vs. Them mindset that pits us against those who look, see, think, believe, or act differently. We often construct a shared enemy to hold ourselves together—“the MAGA people,” “the liberals”, “the christians”, “the muslims”—forgetting that enemies are often strangers we’ve never truly met.

Yet our lives resist cookie-cutter boxes and easy labels. The “shared enemy” often disappears and becomes a potential friend when we find the courage to get proximate and ask curious, humanizing questions.

I contend that unless we awaken and choose to befriend—to move toward the Other through unexpected acts of courage, curiosity, and compassion that disrupt the same old storyline of Us vs. Them—we are headed toward annihilation.

So yes, this is urgent.
We must #daretobefriend.
We must befriend.
We must be a friend— the unexpected friend.

2. The kind of community we are building here

I envision a community of befrienders—people who are seeking to be liberated from the shackles of tribal identities through the transformative act of befriending the Other.

I envision a community where we:

• Seek and speak truth with grace, honoring the inherent dignity of all of God’s children.

• Desire the flourishing of all, which means no stone is left unturned in our pursuit of justice and healing—
  yet no stone is thrown at one another.

• Cultivate a space where creativity abounds as we dare to befriend the Other through stories, songs, practices, and policies.

If that resonates with you, you are in the right place.

3. What you can expect

I will share thoughtful pieces that explore what it means to:

• be a better friend, and

• befriend better—in our families, workplaces, congregations, neighborhoods, and public life.

When it fits, I’ll weave in some of my original songs for social impact to color, inspire, and nuance the ideas. You are welcome to use these songs in your own community, family, classroom, or team gatherings to spark conversation and action.

Upgrade to paid to receive:

• Access to frameworks and tools (my befriending frameworks, reflection guides, and practical exercises)

• Access to a monthly Befriending Circle

  • Last Friday of every month

  • 11:00 AM US Pacific Time

  • A live space to practice courage, curiosity, and compassion together

If you believe in this mission to co-create a world where everyone can experience being befriended—not just debated, tolerated, or categorized—
I invite you to subscribe.

Befriending is for everyone, and your support is greatly appreciated.

Either way, I am grateful you’re here.
Welcome to this journey of befriending the Other.