Emphasis Preaching Journal

"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers" (Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam, 1926). So wrote Kahlil Gibran of the gentle things he learned from life's harsh teachers. Perhaps tolerance is only possible when one can face one's self. When one realizes, "There, but for the grace of God go I," one looks at life situations with a kinder, less judgmental eye. Robert Frost seems to have been more appreciative of life's difficult teachers.