There is a Sufi tale told about a man named Nasruddin who became and ancient king's prime minister. Nasruddin's duties were many and varied and he took all of them rather seriously.  He wanted everything in the king's palace to be in perfect shape and everything had to be in its proper place.  Now as the story goes, one day Prime Minister Nasruddin wandered through the palace taking in all that was before him. His eyes fell upon the Royal Falcon. He said to himself, "I have never seen this kind of pigeon before. This will not do here in our king's great palace.  So he got out a pair of scissors and a pair of clippers and began to trim the bird's claws. Next, he noticed the bird's wings were not shaped like other pigeons he had seen, so he used the scissors to trim up those wings. Finally he noticed that the poor bird's beak was hooked in a way that he had never seen another pigeon's beak look.  He took his clippers and trimmed that bird's beak until it was in the shape he thought it ought to have.

When Nasruddin had finished his work he said, "Now you finally look like a decent bird. Your keeper must have been neglecting you! "

A famous Sufi Master would conclude this story by saying, "This is how we all act when we see some one who is different from us and conclude that since they are different then they must also be wrong."

Are there any Royal Falcons in your life? If you have come across a Royal Falcon or two among your friends or family members, do you accept them or do you try to do as Nasruddin did with that poor falcon?  The Lord's final command to us was to "love one another". Look around at the people in your life. Those are the ones Jesus calls us to love. I sure he meant even those "odd birds" we may come across now and then as well!