The So What Club

By Ruth Ford

It all started when Fred tried to get into his workplace without his identification badge. Then Betty Lou tried to remove a stain, and now the washing machine is spewing all over her. George is running backwards, Jay is deleting back-up files, Reggie’s shoes are filled with shaving cream, and Mrs. Haverty is wearing her gas mask again.
Does that make you wonder what’s up? Then come on and join THE SO WHAT CLUB. This book features 21 stories about football, lost keys, long engagements, overwhelming debt, and squeaky squeaks. But these parables provide an opportunity to ask and answer life’s SO WHAT questions.
This collection of 21 short stories will help you and your family or your discussion group
• interact with Scripture in a new way.
• discover Biblical life lessons in everyday events.
• ask and answer the SO WHATs of life.
“I used a number of these modern day parables with my after-school Bible study group...these stories are a great starting place for exploration of Scripture and growing in faith.” ---Laurel Shields, small group leader for Disciplemaking Committee, Curwensville Alliance Church in Curwensville, PA

• Language: English
• Publisher: Father's Press
• Release date: May 26, 2011

Ruth Ford

Besides participating in a women’s Bible journaling group, Ruth Ford writes devotionals for a leading Christian publication and has co-written several books about missions, as well as curricula for various age levels. She earned a degree in Christian ministries from Asbury College, and a degree in magazine journalism from Regent University. Ruth visits many friends and sometimes wins (but usually loses) on-line Scrabble contests. She’s been married for, like, forever. Four days each week, she walks the family “time share” dog.Ruth’s brother Ross Reitz appears to be a vagabond, constantly resettling in various places along the east coast of the United States. In the course of all those moves, Ross worked as a middle school teacher, and has pursued various and sundry educational degrees. He has been married for way less time than Ruth, and it’s his turn to walk the “time share” dog three days a week (unless he can get Ruth’s husband to do it for him).

Book preview

THE SO WHAT CLUB

By Ruth Ford and Ross Reitz

Smashwords Edition

PUBLISHED By:

Father’s Press on Smashwords. Copyright Ruth Ford and Ross Reitz

Ruth Ford and Ross Reitz hold the copyright of this book and have granted the exclusive right to publish it to Father’s Press.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Father’s Press, LLC

Lee’s Summit, MO

[phone]

www.fatherspress.com

Special thanks to Lenore Garren for illustrations, and to Carolyn Bennett for cover design.

This work contains pieces of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

First printing, February 2010.

Copyright Ruth Ford and Ross Reitz.

All rights reserved.

Acknowledgements

Honest evaluation of any project usually reveals that many, many people helped along the way. So it is with this book. The dream of seeing it published would not have been realized without the encouragement and support of family and friends.

We appreciate our spouses, Bill Ford and Jessica Reitz, for their listening, reading, editing, proofing, cheering us on, and praying on our behalf. We owe special thanks to our parents, Jack and Margaret Reitz, who mentored us and taught us many life lessons, including the value of a good story. (By the way, Mom—thanks for all the proofreading!)

We acknowledge the teachers who encouraged us to read, read, read, and to write, write, write.

A special debt of gratitude goes to KeeKee, Cocoa and Meka. You all inspired the idea that grew into this book.

And then, to the many friends and family members who have read our stories and given their feedback, we are extremely grateful. To our countless guinea pigs, on whom we have tested our ideas, thanks for your willingness to read, to listen, and to respond. To the Thursday Night Writers Group, thanks for your support in this process. To Pastor Steve Smith, who once remarked that every sermon should have a ‘so what’, thanks for the inspiration that led to our title. To Peggy Carter, thanks for all of your technical support and your encouragement. To Lenore Garren, many thanks for your tireless work on illustrations. To Carolyn Bennett, thanks for the ongoing advice, and for designing our cover.

To Mike Smitley and Father’s Press, we say thanks for believing in us and in our idea.

And, of course, to our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we recognize as the author and the finisher of our faith, we express our gratitude and our desire that this book will be used for His glory

Welcome to The So What Club

The early spring sky was punctuated by frothy white clouds as Ruth and Ross walked across the barnyard and then crossed the road. Ruth carried a shovel. Ross carried a white bucket containing a couple of inches of water and some spruce seedlings—a gift from a local conservation organization.

How long do you think this will take? Ross asked.

Shouldn’t be too long, Ruth replied. Mom said there are 10 of them.

That’s good. I still have homework to do.

The late afternoon air was turning crisp as the sun dipped closer and closer to the hillcrest ahead of them. The spicy aroma of pine enveloped the pair as they began climbing and soon entered a forested area. The thick silence encouraged them to lower their voices as they continued discussing upcoming events at school.

Finally they entered a clearing where no trees grew.

This looks good, Ruth said.

Ross nodded and set down the bucket. I guess if there’s ten of them, then we’ll need ten holes. How about if I start digging?

Ruth handed him the shovel and then knelt beside the bucket. She pulled out the first bundle. She untied the string. Oh my!

What? Ross grunted as he straightened from the task of digging.

I think we have a lot more than ten seedlings.

How many?

Well, the first bundle has ten seedlings in it, and I guess there are ten bundles. Mom thought it was just ten trees, but I’ll bet it’s a hundred.

Ross sighed and looked at the sky. Should we go home and tell her?

No. Let’s see how many we can finish planting before we have to go home for dinner.

Okay.

They worked silently for awhile, trading off the jobs of digging and dividing the bundles and planting the seedlings in the holes. After the first bundle, they started telling jokes and singing silly songs. And suddenly Ruth said, Wow. This is the last bundle.

Seriously?

Yeah. Ruth looked at the sky. The sun is going down. You think we can finish?

Let’s do it.

Ross started digging while Ruth separated the final bundle. About ten minutes later, they were finished. They gathered up their tools and started home.

Ross laughed.

What?

Just wondering what Mom’s thinking. We’ve been gone awhile, and she thinks we only had to plant ten trees.

She’ll be surprised, Ruth agreed.

For many years after that, Ruth and Ross climbed the hill frequently to check on their spruce trees. Each year they found them growing taller and stronger. They enjoyed seeing the birds nesting in the branches. They laughed at the rabbits that chased each other in circles around the trunks. They looked forward to the thick shade that eventually would protect them on hot summer days. They inhaled the tangy fragrance. And then, one December about five or six years after they planted the seedlings, they knew exactly where they could find a perfect Christmas tree.

That real-life experience is an example of a story with a so what attached to it. A so what is a meaning that goes beyond the obvious.

This story illustrates a lesson from the Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to a group of people living in a place called Galatia. Near the end of that letter he reminded them, Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows … Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:7 and 9).

Ruth and Ross could have become weary when they found a hundred trees in the bucket rather than ten. They could have given up. But they chose to finish their assigned task, even though it was bigger than expected. It was hard work at the time, but they eventually gained a lot of enjoyment from the resulting trees.

The lesson of perseverance applies to the one event described in the story. But someone who has learned this lesson in one instance has the potential to apply it to many circumstances, for the rest of his or her life.

The stories in this book show people of all ages responding to everyday circumstances and situations. We believe they’ll entertain you—some may even make you laugh. But all of them have a so what—a meaning that goes beyond the obvious story and reflects a deeper life lesson. In that way, they are kind of like the stories that Jesus told, which are recorded in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. That kind of story is called a parable.

Here’s how it works. After every story you’ll find a sketch of a pair of athletic shoes. We chose that illustration, because we wear that kind of shoes almost every day. And we believe a so what should apply to your everyday life.

Beneath the athletic shoes, you’ll find a list of questions, kind of like clues to help you discover the so what of each story.

Many of the questions refer to passages from the Bible. You might not have read a Bible before, so if you’re a little confused about how to find something, we want to help you. A typical reference will look like this:

Name Number: Number.

For instance, a question might ask you to find John 3:16. The name (in this case, John) refers to a book in the Bible.

The Bible is a big book with 66 smaller books inside of it. Those books are divided into two categories: 1) Old Testament, which includes things that happened before Jesus came to earth. 2) New Testament, which includes things that happened when Jesus was on earth, and during the time right after that.

If you don’t know how to find a specific book, check the front of your Bible. You should find a table of contents. It should list all 66 books, and the pages where they can be found within your Bible. That’s where you start.

Once you find the book that is mentioned, you’ll discover that it is divided into portions called chapters, and each chapter has a number. Then you’ll see that chapters are divided into even smaller portions—some only one or two lines—and each of those smaller portions also has a number. We call those verses.

So, in the example listed above, John 3:16:

John refers to the book within the Bible.

3 refers to the chapter within the book of John.

16 refers to the verse within the chapter.

You may also find an on-line Bible that will enable you to find the passages through a search engine. If you have trouble finding a specific reference, please ask someone to help you.

When you’ve solved all of the so what questions, please contact the authors so you can join the so what club.

Table of Contents

Title Pages

1 – The Badge

2 – Paid In Full

3 – Paid In Full: The Sequel

4 – One String Attached

5 – Learning a Lot About Life

6 – The List

7 – The Wedding Day

8 – The Groundskeeper and the Executive

9 – The Snitch

10 – Showtime

11 – You Reap What You Sow

12 – Betty Lou and the Spin Cycle

13 – I Told You So

14 – The Race

15 – The Squeak

16 – Few Are Chosen

17 – First Place

18 – Mischiever Extraordinaire

19 – Spell Check

20 – Over the Fence

21 – Setting the Date

Parable #1 – The Badge

Fred Marpley took one last look in the full-length mirror in his foyer. His perfectly tanned fingers patted his perfectly groomed hair. Gotta color it again soon, he thought, plucking a few stray gray hairs that dared to grow at his temples.

He tucked his geometric print silk tie into his mahogany colored double-breasted coat. He smoothed his matching pants and bent to brush a few wayward specks of dust from his Italian shoes. Then he stood and looked again, his eyes sparkling and his teeth flashing white as he grinned approval.

Fred saluted his reflection and then did a left face on his slick soles. He strode to the den and gazed momentarily at the items littering his desk, then leaned over and began packing them into his briefcase. His hand brushed a new item—an ID badge. Fred Marpley, he read, grinning arrogantly. Won’t need this. He laughed and