How Far Does My Voice Go?

One morning the village muezzin fell ill. "I'll call the prayer today," said Nasreddin Hodja. He got up early and climbed the minaret of the mosque. He put his hand to his ear and called the prayer as loudly as he could. His voice echoed over the village, the fields and the streams.

As soon as he had finished, the Hodja began running down the stairs of the minaret. He took the steps two and three at a time, went out of the mosque door, and kept running along the village road.

When the villagers saw the Hodja running like that, they were surprised: "Hodja, what's happened? Where are you running? Is there some disaster?"

The Hodja answered, out of breath: "There's no disaster, my boys. I'm running to see how far my voice goes!"

The villagers roared with laughter. "Hodja, can you catch a voice by running?" said one. The Hodja laughed too: "It seems not. I ran to the end of the village, and my voice was always ahead of me."

Just then a shepherd grazing his sheep at the edge of a field came up: "Hodja, your voice reached our field. Even the sheep lifted their heads to listen." Another villager said, "It reached my mill." "I heard it too," said the miller.

The Hodja was delighted: "You see? I couldn't find out how far my voice went by running, but I found out from you. So how far a voice reaches is told by those who hear it."

This story makes us laugh and think at the same time: we can't always see how far a kindness we did or a kind word we said has travelled. But that word, that kindness, sometimes goes to faraway places we never knew of and touches someone's heart.