But, if you feel you have to give correction ...don't send them packing.

There seems to be a much different standard by what we live by.  But, let's get off the correction subject ...as perhaps it should be brought to light that much correction is not done.

Let's look at 'packaging' instead.  How about Christmas packaging?  It's not primarily advertised as Jesus' birth ...though the knowledge of that probably remains in most people's minds.  

So, we have a huge focus on presents ...or gifts.

I recall the stories about Saint Nicholas, the elves, and the reindeer ...how they were all focused on delivering gifts to everyone's homes.  And the famous warnings, "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, he's making a list and checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice, he knows when you've been bad or good ..."

Yes, most often they are mild threats ...and false.  In truth, we all expect good things ...in spite of ourselves, and that's a good thing.  But, we learn rather quickly how we can get things ...and our motivation with that is not always good.

The mentality that we are moving towards is more like telling someone what they are going to get you, and that 'they' better be nice about it.  Kind of turns the whole thing around backwards ...and takes the gratefulness out of it.

When something is done wrong ...many things can go wrong. I am going to mention here only three of the general things that can go wrong.

I guess we should agree first on what definition of wrong I'm talking about.  I'm not talking about honest mistakes, or those we can learn from.  If a recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of salt, and you add 3 tablespoons of salt ...well, I'd say you put in the correct ingredient in the wrong amount, and I'd call that an honest mistake.  Unless, of course, it was an uncommon circumstance with an uncommon person ...who did it deliberately because they didn't like the person they were cooking for.

That's kind of an odd example, but that's the wrong I'm talking about ...one where you know it's wrong. There are two categories of this also ...whether you knew in advance that it is wrong, or realized afterwards.

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One example was with a friend of mine and myself.  We were old enough to drive a car, so it's embarrassing to admit we were old enough and responsible enough to drive ...but we weren't wise enough at that age to realize what we were doing was wrong.

I spend the night at my friend's cottage.  It was really warm and there was heat lightning and we thought it was awesome the way the heat lightning lit up everything over the lake.  I guess I have to admit to more unwise choices, as we proceeded to swim throughout this period.  

We got up early the next day, which I believe was a holiday, and as my friend drove me home we noticed that the gift shop at the entrance of the iron mine tour had burned completely to the ground.  We drove up there, and being a holiday there was no one around.  My friend kicked around in the ashes, and began to find all sorts of souvenirs.  Something about it seemed exciting, like we were finding hidden treasures, but part of it seemed not quite right.  My friend had collected several things, then picked up a frying pan ...saying, that my mom could use that.  After a while, he must have convinced me, as we took a bag of the stuff.  

The next day, my mom saw the frying pan and asked me where it came from.  I explained it to her, and what she explained to me really embarrassed me.  She said the stuff was not just going to be bulldozed away, that the souvenirs could be salvaged and cleaned up.  

I felt really bad ...and stupid.  I told my friend, and we got all the stuff together to return it ...but it was still the holiday weekend, so nobody was there.  We left a bag with the stuff in it with a note on the seat of a tour tractor.

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Dad tells a story about how he and his brother had several fields to plant corn seed in.  Back then, they hand-seeded it in the rows ...and the rows were long.  They had been working most of the day, and must have felt they'd not left enough time for play ...yet they still had quite a bit of seed left.  Their dad had said to plant all the seed ...so they dug a deep hole at the end of the field, and buried the rest of the seed.

What they hadn't realized is ...they had dug a deep hole for themselves, though it would be a while before they realized it.  Since the corn was buried so deep, it took a while to come up ...but it did come up.

And the question also came up ...which they admitted to.  I don't remember the consequence as a result of what they'd done ...but if I would ask Dad, he'd be sure to still remember that part.

So, when you do something wrong ...much wrong can come from it. But, the the three general things that I was about to mention earlier that often happen, are as follows:

• Admit it, and preferably correct it if possible. 'Plant' the entire blame where it belongs, on yourself ...if that is the case.

• Be tormented by it ...often to cover something, many other things have to also be covered that may 'crop' up. If you tell one lie, it will likely lead you to tell many more. And if it keeps coming into our mind, we could lose sleep over it, be edgy about the subject, or any number of other mild torments.

• Not be bothered at all ....but, this is the worst. We take it beyond the second option, and take no responsibility or blame for any of it.  And we heap 'dirt' on others to cover it up.