Yunus Emre's Straight Firewood

Long ago, in Anatolia, there lived a villager called Yunus. One year there was a famine and the fields gave no crops. Yunus heard that at the lodge of a wise dervish called Taptuk Emre, everyone was helped. He got on his donkey, went there and asked for wheat.

Taptuk Emre smiled: "Do you want wheat, or breath?" He meant, "Do you want wheat, or shall I teach you knowledge and kind words?" Yunus thought: "Can breath fill a stomach? I need wheat." He took the wheat and set off.

On the way he thought and thought. "Wheat runs out," he said, "but that knowledge would never run out." He went back and said to Taptuk Emre, "I want breath, not wheat." Taptuk Emre said, "Then stay here and serve." Yunus was given the job of carrying firewood for the lodge.

Every day Yunus went up the mountain and gathered wood. But one thing caught everyone's attention: all the wood he brought was perfectly straight. One day Taptuk Emre asked: "Yunus, is there no crooked wood on the mountain? Why do you always bring straight wood?" Yunus answered: "Master, not even crooked wood is fit for this door."

Yunus served at this lodge for forty years. He was always honest, always patient, always humble. Over those years his heart became beautiful, and poems began to pour from his tongue. In those poems he spoke of love, of people and of God. "Come, let us get to know each other, let us make things easy; let us love and be loved, the world is left to no one," he said.

Yunus Emre's poems passed from mouth to mouth for hundreds of years. Today they are still read and still sung.

This story tells us: doing even a small job in the best possible way is of great value. Honesty shows even in firewood. And it is wise to choose knowledge that never ends over something that is soon used up.