IT’S 10:30 ON A SUNDAY MORNING and I am savoring a slice of yellow cake topped with vanilla pudding and a dollop of whipped cream.
Trinity’s basement, set up before the annual October fall dinner. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2011.
I really shouldn’t be eating cake; I don’t need it. But my husband and I have been personally invited by Jean into the basement of Trinity Lutheran Church, North Morristown, for the fellowship hour after worship services. We are visitors.
Trinity Lutheran Church, a small country church west of Faribault in North Morristown. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2011.
I’m not about to pass on this opportunity to mingle with folks in this rural Rice County church. They are a friendly bunch. These congregants know us as we’ve attended church dinners and the annual North Morristown Fourth of July celebration many times.
I feel comfortable here, chit chatting with Jean about her granddaughter who attends college in South Dakota and is working as a waitress for $2.50/hour. Our discussion centers on whether such a wage is even legal. “How can it be?” we ask one another, incredulous.
But before we can resolve the pay issue, one of the pastor’s sons bolts into the basement clutching something in his hand. He unfurls his fingers to reveal an egg.
“Our first egg!” he exclaims as his older brother peers across the table at the precious brown egg and Dad enthuses about the first egg laid by the flock of 25 chickens. I learn then that the pastor’s boys sold futures on eggs—30 dozen at $6/dozen—during a recent fundraising auction for Cannon Valley Lutheran High School. Now that the hens are starting to lay, it will soon be time to deliver on those purchases.
As I witness this enthusiasm over an egg, I am reminded that sometimes it is the simplest things which give us the most joy. A brown egg in a boy’s hand in a country church basement on a Sunday morning. You can’t make this stuff up.
No bald eagle in this shot, or any I took, but simple joy in viewing this rural scene along Rice County Road 12 on the way to church in North Morristown. There’s something about the big sky and the red barn…
Then, after we’ve left the church basement and the boy and his egg and wonder whether he might smash it between his fingers in his excitement, we are equally as excited to spot a bald eagle winging above farm fields. Simple joys. Like cradling a brown egg in your hand in a country church basement.
Horses in the pasture, not a deer hung from a tree, drew my camera on the way home from church.
And then I glimpse a dead deer dangling from a tree, half-skinned, hunters clustered around the body. I am not overjoyed at the sight. But I expect these men are excited. Like cradling a brown egg in your hand in a country church basement.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Your post brings back the memories of 2 young, new-to-the-country boys (ours) who were awed by such when our hens began to “earn their keep”!! The vision of a deer in that state is more readily acceptable than one along the road’s “fog line” knowing that somewhere an insurance agent’s phone has rung with the report of auto damage and a disrupted life routine. Yes, all is ‘just life’ in our beautiful rural settings. Hugs to you, dear Friend…….
I didn’t include this in my post, but when the pastor’s son brought the egg into the basement, I, too, remembered how I thrilled in searching for eggs around the farmyard while growing up.
You are spot on correct with your comment about the deer.
;-/
What a wonderful write up about Trinity North Morristown! One of these years our family will finally get over there for their fall harvest dinner. I know we love going to their July 4th celebration.
Oh, Joan, you would love the Trinity North Morristown fall dinner. THE BEST homemade food.
Thanks for all of your work with the Cannon Valley German Fest. I thoroughly enjoyed the music and readings and the food. It was good to see you there.
I have to remind myself about living the simple life and reveling in the simple joys at times:) Loving your post – Happy Tuesday!
I know what you mean. All too often it’s easy to overlook the simple joys in the busyness of our lives.
A good reminder to keep our eyes and ears open for simple joys, they are all around us, we just have to take the time to notice 🙂
I often note that “it’s in the details.”
Looks like you had a lovely time! How nice to be specially invited.
We always enjoy visiting with the folks at Trinity North Morristown.
It’s certainly not legal to pay anyone that kind of money here! You’d never get away with it. We pay a lot to go out here because wages are so much more than what they are in the US and we don’t have a compulsory tipping service. There’s good and bad on both sides but I do wonder how anyone can every get ahead in life being paid such a pitiful wage xx
I just checked online and learned that, in South Dakota, waitresses (because they are tipped) are exempt from the current minimum wage of $7.25/hour.
However, South Dakota law requires this for tipped employees:
“Tipped employees have a minimum cash wage of $2.13/hour. However, the employer must make sure that the employees receive no less than the minimum wage and must keep a record of all tips received by employees.”– Source: South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation website
Thank you again for this post. You were talking about my grandsons and their first egg! Later that afternoon they discovered another little brown egg. They used the eggs to make butterscotch brownies. I will be visiting in the spring and would love to meet you. Your part of the country is so very different from the high desert and I do enjoy your ‘history lessons’ about the area.Take care and thanks again
I heard via your son, the reverend, that you follow my blog. That’s great. I should have gone out to the van and gotten my camera to snap a photo of your grandson with that brown egg. He was soooooo excited. Butterscotch brownies sound delicious.
I love occasionally going to church out in North Morristown; you can’t beat the intimacy and history of an old country church. I hear that the kids out there are all learning to play violin. I just think that’s fantastic and hope someone will notify me when they perform.
Maybe I will meet you next spring. Let me know when you’ll be out in North Morristown.