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
(816) 600-6288
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 tossed it aside.
When he finished, he picked up his briefcase and pulled his cashmere coat from the rack in the corner. Whistling lightly as he returned to the foyer, Fred squinted in the light that poured through the glass pane in the front door. He unlocked the door and stepped out to meet the springtime chill.
Taking a deep breath of crisp air, Fred let the door slam and lock behind him. He strode to the garage, threw his briefcase onto the passenger seat of his white sports coupe, and ignited the engine. Opening the briefcase, he pulled out a tiny digital recorder and set it on a stack of folders. He backed out of the driveway and pulled into the street. Taking the recorder in his right hand, he began his daily routine.
“Mildred, take a memo …”
Fred had spent most of his adult life giving orders, and most of his demands had been fulfilled by Mildred. She’d been assigned as his secretary right after he’d earned his MBA from Harvard and had come on staff at Marpley Publishers, founded and presided over by Charles Marpley. Mildred had been in her mid-40s, and Fred in his mid-20s. That was two decades ago.
Since then Fred had climbed the corporate ladder, albeit with a few boosts from his “dear old uncle Charlie.” Still, the formidable tycoon had insisted that Fred start out on a low rung so he could “learn the business from the bottom up.” Now, two decades later, Fred had risen to the position of executive vice president in charge of marketing. Mildred, who had climbed right along with him as a favor to his uncle, occasionally remarked to herself that Fred’s head had swelled at each new rung until now his arrogance was legendary. She heard the whispers in the secretaries’ lounge, of course, but she kept her opinions to herself. She was too close to retirement to publicize her sentiments about her boss, especially since he was destined to head the entire company.
Certainly, Fred never wondered what Mildred and his other employees thought of him. In fact, he hardly ever thought of them at all, unless something negative happened, and then he looked for someone to blame. Mildred was good at her job, and in all of his 20 years as her supervisor, he had never known her to slip, so he never really had occasion to think about her. He just dictated every morning and knew that, at the end of the day, she would have met his demands.
This particular morning started no differently than any in the preceding 20 years. Fred’s “Mildred, take a memo …” started 30 minutes of dictation that covered the time of his commute.
Then, suddenly, everything changed, for when Fred pulled in the driveway at the office, he wasn’t greeted by a smiling guard waving him through. Instead, he braked to a screeching halt, just inches from a black-and-white striped barrier gate with a flashing yellow light.
“Stupid, ridiculous …” Fred muttered, slapping the steering wheel with his square fingertips. “What the …” He smacked the heel of his hand against the center of the steering wheel sounding a long, angry h-o-n-k.
Fred tapped his fingers on the gearshift as he watched for some response. Finally, a man leaned through the guardhouse door, waved, and disappeared. But the black-and-white barrier remained in place. Fred rolled his eyes and was about to blow his horn again when the guard sauntered toward Fred’s car. Fred lowered his window.
“Would you get this thing open?” he shouted. “I’m late because of you.”
“Can I see your ID tag, sir?”
“ID tag?”
“Yes, sir. New policy came down from the top, sir. No one gets in without proper ID.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” Fred screamed. “I’m Fred Marpley, vice president in charge of marketing.”
“Doesn’t matter sir, if you don’t have your ID,” the guard replied. “The order came down from the top, you know.”
“But I am the top, I tell you. I’m Fred Marpley, as in Marpley Publishing Company. I’m that Fred Marpley.”
“You got an ID that says that? ‘Cause I only know Mr. Charlie Marpley. He’s the president, you know. And he’s the one who gave the order. So unless you got your ID, sir, you’d best turn this buggy around and get out of here.”
“This is imbecilic,” Fred yelled. He reached for his briefcase. He knew Mildred had given him a new ID badge last week. What happened to it? Then he remembered—it was on his desk at home, where he’d tossed it when he packed his briefcase. He had never thought he would need it. Maybe—just maybe—he unloaded the whole briefcase, just in case he had unintentionally picked it up with some other items. No ID badge.
“It’s not here,” he fumed. “Can’t you just make an exception for today?” Fred wasn’t used to having his orders denied, but he figured begging might work better in this case.
“I’d like to help you, sir,” the man replied. “But I got an intense respect for Mr. Marpley. Mr. Charles Marpley, that is. He drove through here this morning and said, ‘Jim,’ ‘cause he knows me by my first name you know.’ He said, ‘Jim, today’s the first day of that new policy. Lots of people gonna forget their ID badges. You hang tough, Jim. Don’t let anyone through here without it, you hear? If you do it today, they’ll just expect you to do it again tomorrow.’”
The guard’s voice trailed off, and then he added, “I gotta say, sir, that I respect Mr. Charles Marpley too much to disobey him. You better turn this buggy around.”
Fred slammed his car into reverse and roared out of the drive. If he had glanced in the rearview mirror, he would have seen Jim tip his cap and smile. And perhaps, if he had been aware enough to try, he could have even read Jim’s lips. “Yes, sir,” Jim said. “I sure do respect Mr. Marpley. Mr. Charles Marpley, that is.”
SO WHAT?
In Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus told a story about a wedding feast. Read it and note what happened to the man who showed up in the wrong clothes.
Just like Fred Marpley, that man was sent away because he refused to do what the host – or in Fred’s case, the boss—required. Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life, and no man can come to God except through Him (see John 14:6). You could say Jesus is our ID badge. He gives access to God and to heaven. What does that mean to you?
Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your access to the Father, or are you still trying to find another way? Explain your answer.
If you were able to say that you have accepted Jesus, say a short prayer thanking Him for everything you have received and will receive through Him. If you couldn’t say that, are you willing to pray to Him now and tell Him you trust that He is your only way to God the Father?
Parable # 2 – Paid in Full
Adam glanced upward and read the “WAREHOUSE ENTRANCE” sign over the door as he placed his right thumb on the latch and curled his fingers around the handle. His strong hand squeezed it and wrenched it toward him. He stepped across the threshold.
“Too late to turn back now,” he lied to himself.
Adam removed his baseball-style cap and pushed his short curls into a semi-orderly state before he stepped across a gray waiting area to a window on the other side of the room.
“Can I help you?” a young woman asked with a smile.
“Yeah,” Adam replied. “The job you advertised—is it still open?”
“The warehouse job? Sure it is. You want an application?”
Adam nodded and took the sheet that she extended toward him. He pulled a pencil from the pocket of his red plaid flannel shirt and chewed on the eraser as he moved to sit in a folding chair against the wall. He quickly wrote his name, address, phone number, the job for which he was applying, and his past experience. Then he reached line number seven: “Reason for applying for this position.” Adam hesitated and leaned his chair against the wall, balancing it on two legs. He closed his eyes, and in the self-imposed darkness, he saw Grace and heard her voice.
Grace. He breathed the name silently. They had met when she brought her late-model sports car to his father’s garage. He listened to her describe her “baby’s” symptoms. “Sounds like your alternator,” he diagnosed.
He remembered how she chafed her hands together and blew into them while she waited for him to fix her car. He remembered her designer jeans, her expensive shoes, her suede jacket, her sparkling earrings, her perfume. Paradoxically, she seemed out of place, yet totally comfortable, in the untidy, greasy garage.
“Sorry it’s so cold in here,” he grimaced. “Guess we forgot to pay the bill again.” His smile hinted that he was joking, and her twinkling eyes laughed at him.
It’s just for one evening, he had told himself. She never needs to know the truth.
The truth was that times were tough. His dad had taken a second mortgage to keep the business afloat. Keeping the heat to a minimum was one way they scrimped and saved.
She paid him and said good-bye. He watched her tail lights disappear as her car turned right onto Main Street and passed out of his view. He sighed, expelling a puff of white breath into the frozen air, and returned to put away his tools.
“That’s that,” he muttered.
But Grace had returned the next day, saying she must have left her new leather gloves in the garage. When they couldn’t find them, she insisted this should not be a wasted trip. “Let me treat you to dinner, just to thank you for your good work,” she said, wheedling till he finally agreed to accompany her to the diner across the street.
They talked easily, eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes and drinking the coffee pot dry. He discovered that she lived up-town. She was an advertising executive for a major company in the financial district of a nearby city. She shared his love for baseball and motorcycles. And meatloaf was okay, she teased, but she really loved hotdogs—the kosher kind.
Adam smiled as he remembered how it all started. But he just couldn’t figure out how they had moved to the point where they were now.
The bottom line, he supposed, was that Grace had been there for him ever since that inauspicious beginning. When he dropped a hydraulic jack on his foot and spent a month on crutches, she visited every evening, often bringing a take-out dinner from his favorite restaurant. She cared for him when his appendix ruptured, and he spent several weeks recuperating from surgery. She stood by his side at the funeral home when his father died.
She quickly became the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing he thought of at night. She was the only one who knew the tremendous burden of debt that he’d inherited along with the garage. Even without his telling her, she knew he was suffocating in the knowledge that there was no way he would ever break even.
And then last night, she had shattered his reverie as he stared at long columns of figures and ledgers that simply didn’t add up. Bringing him a steaming styrofoam cup of coffee from the convenience store on the corner—with one teaspoon of sugar in it, just how he liked it—she had begun to rub the place along the base of his neck that always tensed up when he leaned over his desk and tried to balance the books.
“Adam,” she said.
“Yeah,” he whispered, taking a swig of the smooth liquid and feeling his muscles relax under her touch.
“Adam, are you ever going to ask me to marry you?”
He choked as the coffee scalded his throat. “Get m-m-m-married?”
“Should I take that as a ‘no’?” she teased.
He gazed at her, his mouth agape. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Suddenly her eyes weren’t laughing. “Yeah. I’m serious,” she said.
“Grace, you know there’s nothing I would like better than to marry you. I still can’t believe you want to hang out with me, let alone marry me. I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world. But I can’t ask you to marry a loser.” He heard his voice rising with frustration. “I can’t ask you to marry a guy who can’t support you. I can’t ask you to marry me when I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. I can’t …”
She placed her hand over his mouth. “Be quiet,” she ordered, leaving her finger on his lips just in case. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I know you can hardly find the end of your balance sheet. I want to see it all paid in full so you don’t have to worry anymore.
“Look, Adam,” she continued. “I’ve got an investment portfolio that will cover your debt and set you up for the future. I want to liquidate my assets, and we’ll pay off your bills so we can get married. It’s very simple …”
He jerked back from her and rose from his chair, his eyes icy. “No,” he said quietly. “I won’t let you do it.”
“Oh, Adam,” she wheedled. “Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be right,” he said stiffly. “Besides, I’d never feel like a man again. I’d be freeloading from my wife.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered, taking both of his hands and turning them palm upward, then placing her own hands in his. “Adam, I don’t love the money. I do love you. It hurts me to see you worry about your bills. It hurts to know your financial situation is keeping us apart. It’s such a silly thing to hold between us. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to have you with me every day for the rest of my life.”
“Absolutely not,” he had repeated, and the conversation continued that way until it exploded into an argument. Grace had left, slamming the door behind her ...
The front two legs of Adam’s chair dropped to the floor as he felt a touch on his arm. “Excuse me, sir,” the secretary said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Thanks.”
“You want some coffee or something? I’ve got a fresh pot. Just tell me how you like it.”
“With a spoonful of sugar,” he said, absently staring at the styrofoam cup she’d placed in his hand. He watched the steam rise, forming a “G” before it dissipated in the air between them. Grace knows how I like it, he thought. But he didn’t say anything. He just thanked the young woman.
“You sure you’re all right, mister?”
“Yeah. I just worked really hard today. I’m a mechanic, but I need some more dough. Got some bills I want to pay in full, you know? I’m hoping to work here nights.”
She nodded and returned to her desk.
Adam’s gaze returned to the application. Line seven hadn’t changed. It still requested his “reason for applying for this position.”
How do I write it, he thought, chewing again on his pencil eraser.
“Got some bills I want to see paid in full,” he finally wrote, “and I want to do it myself.”
He knew the employer would consider it a responsible answer. Some people would even call it commendable. But Grace had called it pride.
Adam shrugged and stood up. He walked to the receptionist’s window and offered her the application.
“Thanks again,” he said. Turning on his heel, he left the warehouse and went home to wait for a call from the company.
SO WHAT?
Scripture often refers to sin as a debt that no individual can repay. Yet many people try to earn salvation. How do they do that?
If anyone ever had reason to think he could earn his way into relationship with God, it was the Apostle Paul. Look up Philippians 3:4-6 and list the things that Paul could have considered to be on the “credit” or “profit” side of his account with God.
Now read on, to Philippians 3:7-9. Record those verses in the space provided.
Paul indicates that all those things he thought were profit were actually loss, because Jesus is the only One Who could pay the debt he owed to God. When Jesus was on the cross, His final words were “It is finished.” The word He used can be translated as a business term meaning, “It is paid in full.” What does that mean to you?
Scripture uses the word “grace” to describe God’s attitude toward us as individuals. Many define that term with the acronym “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” Read 2 Corinthians 8:9 and then describe how that acronym explains this verse.
Is your debt paid in full? Explain your answer.
Parable # 3 – Paid in Full: The Sequel
The sign over Adam’s head squealed in protest as the cold northerly wind pummeled it with steely sharp, pinhead-sized water droplets, driving it back and forth on the iron chains from which it hung. The peeling paint just barely revealed letters spelling out “WAREHOUSE ENTRANCE.”
“Probably hasn’t been painted since I did it,” he muttered, as his strong hand settled on the door handle. Still he hesitated, standing on the top step and wondering if he should just go home. Grace had sent him to the big chest freezer in the garage this morning to find the top layer of their wedding cake, still decorated with peach-colored flowers and shiny gold confetti.
She had tried to be secretive, but he knew she had searched through multiple stores to find candles that exactly matched the cake decorations. Right now she would be preparing dinner for their first anniversary. She had dropped hints that she was planning some sort of culinary miracle.