I forget where this tale started, and like the one of Stone Soup there are likely many versions.

My version takes place in Anatolia (Turkey) long ago on a cold winter night.
Several men of a village sat around talking about their herds, families and how cold it was.
One man, without thinking, said it wasn't that cold, and he had stayed out all night in worse.
His friends immediately challenged him to a contest. He had to spend the very next night alone, without fire on the hilltop overlooking their village from sundown to sunrise.
If he failed, went home early or started a fire, he would have to prepare a magnificient banquet for his friends.
And so, with his friends escorting him to the hillside the next day as the sun was setting.
He stood there alone, it getting darker, colder,the wind coming up. He pulled his robes closer and stamped his feet. He heard a wolfpack.
By midnight he was half frozen, knew he could not survive another hour and was about to walk home in defeat. He looked down on his village in shame. And there, in a far away window he saw a tiny flicker of light from a candle.
The man stared at the tiny light. And somehow, he gained an inner strength to remain until sunrise, staring at that distant light.
His friends walked out next morningto him , prepared a fire and brewed coffee.
They questioned him carefully. Did he prepare a fire? No. Did he sneak home and return? no.He had NO source of heat? He started to reply, and then told of the distant candle.
His friends fell on his admission as proof he received a source of warmth,however slight and had lost the wager.
They announced they would come to his home that very night for dinner.
They assembled at his home, entered and noted how cold it was as he greeted them.
He excused himself to go attend his kitchen.
They talked idly, until over two hours had passed. Angrily, they stormed into the kitchen.
There were indeed several pots with ingredients of lamb, rice and vegetables, coffee and a dessert fully prepared. and, in the window sill was a single candle, cooking it all.

It's cold and wet here. I am drinking coffee a Menehune brought from Hawaii.

Chris, Merry Christmas! I hope the coffee warms you.

Ah. That is one of the Mullah Nasrudin tales.
Mullah Nasrudin is a Sufi folk hero. The stories are to teach wisdom by absurdity.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nasrudin

Wisdome by absurdity...yep, that fits.

One of my first multiple expressions of religosity was sufism. I was 5 years old and spun round and round on my parent's bed until I collapsed and had a vision.
My first exposure to this tale was in fact a children's storybook hand selected by Danny Kaye for UNICEF.
I next heard it orally from a turkish sufi master, who's gifted Koran, and way of reading the koran I still keep.

I think that whole spinning on the bed thing might have been surfism...

Sounds about what I felt like the first time I tried body surfing, but I could be wrong.

Happy New Year anyway...

JohnE

I must not be religious enough. I spun round and round, then I threw up...not what I'd call an inspiring vision at all.

The power of the almighty is often too awesome for mortal man to tolerate. The Old Testament is chock full of occasions of visitations by angels which resulted in the Hebrews falling down and being sore afraid-interpreted, in some translations, as throwing up, or even less appealing loss of control of bodily functions. The favored translations are the ones that sound best read from the pulpit.

Well, I guess I've had my share of moving religious experiences then, LOL.

No wonder some angels refer to us as monkeys. Ever seen monkeys at the zoo when they become agitated?

I ate a bad lobster once, and I was "sore afraid." So was everyone around me...