Blood Toll

Always near me,

Waiting patiently,

You watch with

Pained eyes as

I wander on,

Never looking back,

Never noticing.

Your very blood paved

The road on which

I travel;

Your life paid

My toll.

Yet I stumble along--

In boots muddy

From my sin and

Carelessness.

Cursing You for the cracks

And ruts my

Own feet have

Created.

--Kari Yerton

09/21/2010

My So-Called Single Life

I purposely avoided posting anything on Facebook or Twitter--or here--yesterday. I didn't want to add my voice to the clamor of Valentine's Day posts. After all, there are few positive response options available to me as a single, Christian adult.

• There's the Boycott: "Singles Awareness Day" (Come on! Do you really want to call it S.A.D.? That's just pathetic.)
• Or we have Substitution: "Jesus is my valentine." (Right. No one's buying that.)
• Denial is also popular: "Just waiting on God's timing." (Yes, but you're still just waiting.)
• And of course, there's always the standby Act-Like-Nothing's-Happening: "Beautiful weather!" "Oh, look, a puppy!" "There sure are a lot of people in Wal-Mart today." (Need I say how obvious that one is?)

So, I opted out. {Now, I did celebrate...with my family. I got (and gave) cards, chocolate--even a cute balloon. And then, I babysat so my parents and my sister and brother-in-law could go on dates.} But, after watching the multitude of posts and comments ranging from the nauseatingly sentimental to the painfully bitter, I decided I would give you my true thoughts and feelings on single adulthood. (And, I do mean adulthood; if you are still under the age of 21, you have no idea what true singleness is.)

Thus, here you have the true account of how I, Kari Renee Yerton, age 30, single, Christian adult feel about being single.

1. I HATE IT!
2. I LOVE IT!
3. My whole life is spent somewhere between these two extremes.

There, I said it. That is the whole, ugly secret. How I feel about my place in life changes daily, minute by minute:

• I love being able to make decisions without needing to consult someone else.
• I detest going to bed alone each night.
• I enjoy having my own space and alone time.
• I hate eating in restaurants by myself.

And so it goes...Each day, I will have moments of "Thank God, I'm single," and "This stinks!" If I want Mexican food, I eat Mexican food. If I want to go on a road trip, off I go. But, no matter how deeply I may long for someone to eat with or talk to as I drive, I can't make that happen.

This is where I feel the Church has failed its single adults. We're taught how to be in relationships, how to choose a partner, how to parent our children; but no one tells us how to be single. We're given pat lines of "Let Jesus fill that space in you," and "You have to be whole in Him before you can offer yourself to someone else." Well, that's just awesome, but what does it mean?

We are relational beings, created in the image of a God who is in constant triune companionship. The only time God said "Oops!" during creation was when he saw man was alone. And yet, I am made to feel guilty or less of a Christian for longing for and dreaming of that companionship. My newsflash is this: I'm not needy. I'm not desperate. I'm not lacking in faith. I AM HUMAN.

My humanity cries for companionship. My humanity craves physical touch. My humanity desires emotional connection. And it is my humanity that is being overlooked and ignored.

So, how do we balance our human needs with our spiritual life?

In my opinion, my don't have to "balance" them. They are both intrinsic parts of our makeup. God has made us to need one just as much as the other. The problem arises when we focus on one to the exclusion of the other. Christians and non-Christians alike make this mistake. One side tries to build spirituality without humanity, and the other focuses on humanity without spirituality. To be healthy, we must build both sides of ourselves. Here, we strike a conundrum.

I'll follow up on this thought a little more later, but for now, just be thinking about how you/we/I have been taught to ignore or downplay our human side because it's not "spiritual" enough. My reminder to you is that Jesus' favorite name for himself was "Son of Man." I think that would be significant.

--Kari

Question

Sometimes I wonder if I am invisible.
Can you hear me? Am I real?
Is it possible I live only in me?
Maybe this is all in my imagination.
Maybe this is all a dream.

How do you know what is life?
How do you see? How do you learn?
When does the real become life lived?
How does the dream find reality?
Who can teach the skeptic to love?

Why does love always evade?
When is it real? Who does it touch?
Why can I not grasp the cord and live?
How could I drop out so easily?
Why does no one catch me before I fall?

Sometimes I wonder if I am invisible.

--Kari Yerton
09/1999

First Snow

The first snow always
Makes me homesick.
Homesick--not for home and family,
But for six and my new, blue sled.
Bright blue it was--
And weren't we a pair?
Me, in my red snowsuit,
You, in your brown coveralls--
Looking very pastorly
Sliding down the hill
In your gold sock hat.
The hat that matched the sled--
The hat that always found its way
To our lop-sided snowmen--
The hat that you're always wearing
When I remember that day--
The day we sledded--
Behind the church,
Beneath the highway,
For the last time in Ohio.

--Kari Yerton
12/2003


(My niece and nephew with my old sled)

Masquerade

Bow

Spin

Turn

One by one,

We take our places,

Twirling and bending,

Dancing around the room,

Safe behind our masks.

Dip

Reach

Step

Midnight approaches.

Slowly, we weave

Across the floor,

Moving toward discovery,

Toward You.

Stand

Sway

Twirl

Maskless,

You enter the floor,

We stare at Your beauty.

The chimes ring:

One---

Bow

--Kari Yerton

10/30/2010

New Story (Part 1)

--Part 1--

The sun was just setting as the small pickup slowly turned down the packed dirt street. A single, bald ligtbulb suspended above barely gave enough light to show the truck's chipping red paint. As headlights searched down the rows of sheet metal and plywood shacks, the five passengers grew restless.

From the front passenger seat, Dale looked over his 9-year-old daughter's head at the driver. "Are you sure it's safe down here?"

The Haitian pastor grinned back: "Oh, it's fine. Actually, I think your girls will be the first American children to visit here. I mean, I've never brought my family down here, but we'll be fine."

The four Americans glanced at each other uneasily as Dale thought to himself: "Then, why on earth, are you bringing my wife and daughters down here?"

Before he could voice his thoughts, though, they were turning down the street leading to the slum church, and the headlights were giving them other things to consider.

A crowd of people about fifty strong was gathered under one of the lightbulbs that served as streetlamps.

"Dad?" 18-year-old Lora spoke up from the back seat as she scooted toward her mom.

"They'll let us through," their driver assured them.

Sure enough, the sea of people slowly parted as the vehicle approached, then closed behind. The truck inched forwar as the crowd shifted to let it pass.

Then, someone looked in the windows.

Shouts rang out.

"Americans!"

"Money!"

Suddenly, the missionaries found themselves held hostage by a desperate mob.

--To Be Continued--

The Rose Bush and the Oak Tree

Periodically, I will be posting stories that I have written.

The Rose and the Oak Tree
by Kari Yerton

Deep in the garden, in a hidden, out-of-the-way corner, grew an oak tree and a rose bush.

The rose bush watched the oak as it grew greater and stronger with each passing season. She saw his branches shelter nests of birds and his acorns feed families of squirrels. She heard the wind whistle through his leaves and marveled at the colorful showers he dropped each fall.

And she loved him.

“How can I ever hope to equal his strength or size or importance?” she wondered, “ I am only a small, creeping plant.”

She saw the other flowers grow up close to his roots and envied their bright colors and tall stems.

“I could never reach my flowers higher than theirs,” the rose bush sighed, “and my thorns would only scar his beautiful bark.”

As she wept in loneliness, her tears caused a sweet smell to rise from her petals.

The oak tree smelled this beautiful scent and searched the garden for what flower or tree gave this great gift. Finally, he looked down and saw the small rose bush, almost hidden by the hedges.

He heard her weeping and wished he could make her happy, so he watched to see if he could find a chance to help her. He saw her stretch out her leaves to give cover to a small mouse caught in a rain shower and open her flowers to feed passing bees. He mourned as her blooms wilted and fell away and wondered as she blew the petals to fragrance other parts of the garden.

And he loved her.

“How can I, a great, tall tree, ever hope to equal her beauty and fragrance?” he wondered, “I am too big and too rough to venture near her delicate flowers.”

The oak sighed in the wind and began to try to think of gifts he could give her.

He waved his branches over her to give her more shade, but she reached for the warmth of the sun.

He tried sheltering her from the rainstorm, but she strained toward the life-giving flood.

Finally, the only thing he had left was a single acorn.

He gently dropped the acorn in front of the rose bush and stood trembling to see if this final gift would be right.

The rose bush looked at the acorn in front of her and wondered why it was there. Surely, some squirrel would come to claim it, but, no, it just lay there. Finally, curiosity caused her to look up.

The oak tree quietly asked, “Beautiful friend, why are you so sad?”

The rose bush was afraid, but the gentleness of the oak gave her courage to say, “Because I am too small and insignificant to come near your roots.”

“Insignificant?” the oak asked. “How can the most beautiful and fragrant flower in the garden be insignificant?”

“But,” cried the rose bush, “I am not brightly colored like the violets or tall like the lilies, and I have sharp thorns that hurt anyone who touches me!”

“What does height matter to me?” smiled the oak. “I am the tallest tree in the garden, and the birds who nest in my branches show me all the bright colors I could wish to see.”

“You forget my thorns,” reminded the rose bush.

“No, I did not,” laughed the oak tree. “You need the thorns to cling to my rough bark. My size and strength will protect you, and your beauty and fragrance will spread across the garden as you climb my trunk.

“Come, rose bush, climb up around my roots and we will grow together.”

And the rose bush wept for joy.

Here I go again, on my own

So, I'm once again attempting a foray into the blogosphere. Heaven only knows whether or not I will actually be able to keep up with this one, but maybe good fortune will shine a little brighter this time around. =)

In lieu of an introduction, I'm just going to tell you about my last week.

The ministry internship program I am enrolled in this year just sent half of us on a road trip to Texas. Try to immerse yourself in this image for a moment: 15 college kids in a 15-passenger van for 10 hours.

In pain yet? Me too. Ugh! My whole body still hurts from being crammed into the back row with 3 other girls. At least, I was able to pull the age card (being roughly 10 years older than any of them) and sat on the end by the aisle where I could stretch out my legs, but it was still miserable!

Besides the Gitmo-like torture of the van, however, the trip was a lot of fun! We visited 3 churches in Austin and Galveston and made some great connections. Everywhere we went, we made new friends and learned some new group games. =)

I'll check in soon with some pictures and updates on what's going on in my corner of the world.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kari