THE MYSTERY PACKAGE AND PAY BACK

Hi Friends!

I’m sure glad to be with you today after a mysterious, and what some would say, was a scary incident yesterday.
It all started when I went to the post office to get my mail. I opened my P O Box and found a package with a return address from someone I did not know, so I double-checked to be sure this is for me. Yes it’s made out to my
company Artistic Wood Studio. Was this something I ordered? Is it from some company that wants to send me samples of what they make? Neither seemed likely, given the box had been used before and some writing had been crossed out with a felt marker.

Then more sinister possibilities popped in my head, like the name Ted Kaczynski, or could it be from a disgruntled LJ member ? What to do, what to do? Should I dump it in a bucket of water? should I call the bomb squad? Should I open it slowly, trying to peek in for loose wires? It seemed kind of heavy for a small package. Should I open it outside? All of these questions swirled in my head. I then thought, I’m being totally silly, it’s not going to be anything bad, is it? My curiosity got the best of me and I decided to go for it. I slowly opened the corners, peeking in the box to see what I could see…nothing but cardboard. I had to open it more…I was totally committed to find out what this was. I dug deeper. More cardboard stacked and glued together. Very strange. Okay, I’m going in. The box is almost torn apart then I see it a shiny metal object. Could it be a devise? No, something would have happened by now. After tearing some more card board I see it a shiny metal object that looks pretty dangerous… what is it? It’s beautiful and surely someone would not construct something this pretty for negative purposes.
Then I find it…THE LETTER!! It sounds friendly enough. It begins, “Hi Jim”, then a name “Joe in 10aSEE”. Is this a code name ?

Ahhh, the rest of the story. This letter is from a Lumberjock member, http://lumberjocks.com/joein10asee. He goes on to say (to paraphrase) that he noticed that I was a positive thinking Lj member who greeted new members, including him . Then he said he is a firm believer of “pay it forward” theory of returning favors and that he belongs to a bunch of motorcyclists that collect cash and randomly pass out cash to needy people without even letting them know who their group or individuals are. He said he was having trouble with dust collection on a used planner he had bought and a Lj member had offered a dust bag to him, refusing payment. As a form of paying it forward (his tag line) he decided to send me one of his beautiful scribes he had made and had done a blog, here on LJs http://lumberjocks.com/joein10asee/blog/33363#comment-1442962

All said and done, Joe wants to promote the “pay it forward” idea and see if we can all do random acts of kindness.
Thank you so much for the beautiful scribe and the random acts of kindness. Let us all see if we can carry on with Joe’s idea and perform a random act of kindness for someone today or very soon.

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/