::: blog

“I am afraid we have eyes bigger than our stomachs, and more curiosity than capacity. We embrace everything, but we clasp only wind.” — Michel de Montaigne

I think it really only comes down to a question of time. Pile up the amount of food someone eats over a lifetime and I doubt their eyes will desire more. Capacity is similarly time-sensitive and perhaps the saddest state of being is discovered by those who outlive their curiosity. And finally, the “clasping of wind”: this is only true if we believe that we lack time and consequently dart from one thing to the next, always beginning and abandoning but never loving and living.

Really, what Montainge is saying is this: “I am affraid we don’t have enought time.”

I say we do, but we just need heavenly patience and perserverance.

the german thought of wunder,
jaw-breaking pipes of lead.

when will the muddy waters clear?
when will we see clearly what lies ahead?

now we look through a glass darkly,
but then…. then we shall see face to face.

someday this will all make sense i hope.
to me you are missed.

sometimes i wonder if i can freeze time and stand it still, placing the memory in a clear glass vial with a cork.

beautiful moments and thank-you’s that i want to hold on to, and remember. i feel as though my life will not be one noticed and recognized by the accolade-awarding organizations of society, but that it will be one lived for the individual. for the person who needs someone, an imaginary friend. and the beautiful thing is that i need them too. i wonder if they will know how much i needed them too. i am not as good about saying thanks.

i remember being such a frustrated child. i didn’t know what it was that was wrong in the world. i didn’t know what it was that was wrong with me. i simply knew that things were out of place, and i wanted them to be right again. i still want them to be right again.

tears of joy and love and memories.

naught may endure but mutability, but i hold a hope in the hollow of my hands that the pieces of fallen stars will grow into constellations. constellations that tell stories of great and beautiful things that were. constellations that are prophecies of great and beautiful things yet to be.

shooting stars that leave the longest tails in the sky that you have ever seen.

i haven’t seen a shooting star recently, but i know that as long as i learn and relearn how to look up, i will see them, and see them in broad daylight. know that there is no need for embarrassment here. there never was, there never will be. we are two sides of the same coin. some have missed that connection, but that doesn’t change this piece of coinage.

i hope the splinter works its way out that i was unable to remove with knives and tweezers and finger-nail clippers.

i hope.

hope is a good thing. it is the best of things.

it lives in the best of company and is as fresh on any scene as the life-giving light from the sun after days and weeks of stormy weather.

i loved knowing what questions to ask. i didn’t even think about it. they just came as though i already knew the answers.

but thank you for telling me, and telling me in person. that means a lot.

degrees of separation. patterns. righteous desires. open-ended questions. settling down into near-by locals. searching for the divine. motherhood. fatherhood. childhood. hooded-hoodies.

life is beautiful. life is full. life is good. life is meant to be lived.

thank you for what was. thank you for what is. thank you for what will be.

it is not everyday you find a friend that can withstand the storms and the winters of change, of mutability.

below is a random sampling from my journal entries over the past few years to commemorate this momentous occasion.

so the question for my reader is this: how has your journal writing been going recently?

(and i ask this sincerely, not in any way wishing to compare; rather simply to encourage; but then you would have known that already, me thinks)

October.12.2008 — Provo, Utah

Today marks a record in my journal-keeping: 1,000 consecutive days!!!

I began the day before I entered the MTC in January of 2006 and have not missed a day since. I am currently on my 8th volume, with almost 1,200 pages of entries.

Volumes 1-6 cover my time in Hungary, serving as a missionary for the church. Volume 7 starts shortly after my return and mostly is about my summer travels and school, and now volume 8 begins with the 1st of September 2008 and should last through the New Year.

These pages cover the full range of emotions and experiences–having followed me into the gulches of Capitol Reef and the mountain lakes of the High Uintas. They have traveled over oceans and continents, from the East to West coasts. They have seen me through dark days and lonely weeks as well as in the midst of ecstasy and fulfillment.

May.04.2008 — Vernon, Utah

It was nice taking a sponge bath this morning, shaving and then getting dressed in slacks and a tie to go to church. It is hard to make as much of a distinction on Sundays out camping. So much of the normal every-day things revolved around basic survival–food preparation and clean-up, getting into gear and packing it back up, etc. We did, however, have a wonderful chance to conduct a number of oral histories today and go on a tour of Vernon.

Tomorrow I am the leader of the day. It will be the first day of a three-day trip up a canyon and so it was somewhat crazy tonight as everyone got all of their gear together to break camp early in the morning….

John Kovalenko and John Bennion’s nephew, Collin Mitchell, played something of a concert tonight, the one on the cello and other the violin. It was beautiful.

January.30.2008 — Debrecen, Hungary

A funny story and then a few words about a program:

So last night, at sometime around 12:30, I apparently deiced we need to say another prayer. (Elder Gafin related this to me this morning but I only vaguely remember it). I basically started just talking and woke Elder Gafin up as I kept asking him to say the prayer. He had a hard time making sense of it all at first, seeing how he was half-way asleep. So he asked me three times, “So do you want me to pray?” and each time I said yes. So he crawled out of his bed and said a prayer. After that I just went back to sleep and so, slightly confused but mostly tired, he did the same. We got a good laugh out of it this morning.

This evening we had a great program with Papp Sándor and Katalin. They were super nice. Kati had been to Utah with a folk-dance team and had been impressed by things she had learned and was very interested in the church, specifically in the Holy Temples. Sándor was also interested, especially in prophets and apostles and the fact that all this is done not for money or power.

July.07.2007 — Szeged, Hungary

Farkas Lajos was baptized today by Mari László. As Elder Ruggles said, “The Lord prepared him, a member found him, the Spirit taught him, and we got to watch.”

… Lajos is the first investigator that I have found (i.e. member referred), taught, and seen baptized all in one transfer. Tomorrow marks 28 days, as a matter of fact, since I first met him after church and scheduled with him.

Oh, and by the way, transfer calls come tomorrow morning.

April.13.2007 — Kazincbarcika, Hungary

This transfer, in all honesty, has probably been the one that has taken the longest for me to acclimate. It has taken the better part of the entire 1st transfer. This is most likely due to the fact that I have spend so much of my time elsewhere–but even then six weeks to get “settled” is a while.

I feel as though my stuff is still somewhat scattered–not quite all in its right place.

I have grown a lot in the past six weeks. Seeds sown long ago are taking, and have taken, root in me.

The investigators we have right now are really great as well. I am amazed at the depth of each one and their uniqueness of personality. From Koren Kornélia to Bolló Robert to Szabó Ferenc. They are all such individuals. I have really started to feel a friendship with each one.

November.13.2006 — Pécs, Hungary

Today was a good day, mostly because I just now talked with Lajos and found out that his day went really well, especially with his fasting. He is quitting smoking, which is not altogether an easy thing to do. The largest obstacle, however, most of the time seems to be the degree to which the individual desires to quit. Lajos wants to quit. He understands the importance of it and really wants to live a pure and clean Christian life.

We too are fasting with him today. We all began this afternoon and will finish tomorrow after District Meeting all together with a prayer and lunch and a lesson. Even though today is our Preparation Day Dieuri and I spent the afternoon watching over a less-active youth in the branch. His younger brother had a operation, for exactly what I never have quite understood, and so his mom is there at the hospital with him. She asked us to pick him up from school and so we did…

My family is doing well. I am doing well. Dieuri is doing well, and so it Lajos. I also made a list of everyone to whom I want to send Christmas card and I bought those today so I can get them off in time before the last-minute rush — especially since they have to travel a bit father than usual.

p.s. This will actually be my first Christmas away from home, and subsequently my first time sending Christmas cards.

June.18.2006 — Győr, Hungary

And thus passes another day in the life of Coy Elder. And a good day it was too.

Incidentally, today marks the 6 month mark from entering the MTC. How far I’ve come in time, space, and progress! And yet something ever so quietly whispers that the next 6 months will be all the more crucial and influential. This difference will be the result, I reason, from the shift in perspectives from inward to outward. To date I have been primarily focused on my own development–in the gospel and with Hungarian. The next six months will, however, be substantially different in this regard.

This morning was somewhat rough going, however–but the Book of Mormon to the rescue–and, more specifically, Alma 26:27. I needed it, to say the least. Saving souls is not to come without a price, to reference Elder Holland, … no, indeed it is not!

February.10.2006 — Provo, Utah

Today Andruska Testvér and Despain Testvér said no more than 15 words in English the entire day. We learned a lot. I think their not speaking English will be a big aid to us.

Other than that today was very similar to yesterday and the day before. I don’t have much to say.

I still have a lot to learn, here in particular and on the mission in general. I am progressing in my Book of Mormon in Magyar goal and have added a number of other Speak Your Language (SYL) goals.

Tomorrow is Preparation day and I am scheduled for a haircut. I guess we will see then how thin it is getting up on top sooner rather than later.

a thought of getting out of the house to live deliberately, and not entirely indoors devoted to the proper placement of words and numbers for the desired end result of “a” written on someone else’s computer somewhere out there in the world of academia lead to a quick hop, skip, and a drive out to conquered (written concord) and walden’s pond (now affectionately famous for being thoreau’s pond).

I realized how long I have been away from actual forests and trees that grow naturally (as opposed to either in straight lines, or with constant watering, or not at all). all of my musings were smugly interrupted, however, as we turned into the parking lot by a sign announcing that the park closed at 8pm. at first i didn’t believe it. how does a lake close down at 8pm? and why? i didn’t think about this for too long though, being informed by a sign next to the one i was looking at that only added insult to injury, $5 parking fee. so promptly turning around we went in search of somewhere else to park but found none. everyone else had already thought of that and lots of signs made it clear that such “out of the box” thinking had long ago been out-lawed. the most natural of things seemed to be outlawed already. we turned around, resigned to the fate of paying $5 for an hour of parking by the pond and the thought of not actually getting to sit, talk, and read as we watched the sun set over the lake i only had heard about so far away so long ago.

down by the lake shore we saw a policeman in a patrol car, and still in something next to disbelief i went over to inquire about that sign i had seen. what did it mean, “the parking lot is closed at 8pm” i wondered. he answered my requests with a no-nonsense, “it means i lock the gate and tow whatever is left in there and fine ya’ too.” i explained that i was from out of town (which he could have easily guess by my lack of an accent and my silly questions) and then hurried off down the wire-fence lined path to the cabin that is no-more with signs reminding us to stay on the path as the shoreline is “protected”. ben thought that barbed wire would have been more effective with about the same look and suz talked about her first time skinny dipping (which happened to be here at walden pond). “it just seemed the perfect place to thoreau your cloths off and go for a swim” she said. i laughed. obviously she has been married to ben for a while now.

winding our way past path-walkers and interrupting couples we arrived at a pile of stones and a fenced in square, ten feet by fifteen feet. we were reminded by the far off sound of a speakerphone mounted on the top of the patrolman’s car that it was now 7:40pm and that the park would be closing in 20 minutes, we pulled out a camera and standing next to the sign declaring thoreau’s intent to “live deliberately” ben gave me his cell phone and suz gave me her watch and i posed for a photo. having achieved our purpose (or at least what would be allowed by law and order given the circumstances) we started thinking about heading back. before we did so we felt an obligation to read the sign describing why this place was important. it showed where luisa may alcott had brought a group of people to show them the location of the cabin as best she could remember. they all stood there and each tossed a rock in a pile to mark the spot. they were only 15 feet off, come to find out years later when someone found the remains of the chimney footings in the ground. so, to be true to this historical occurrence and the homage of later pilgrams we each found a pebble in the area and, reminiscent of the throwing of the stones in mecca, we each threw it from a distance onto the pile contained rocks with names painted, strached, chiseled, and burnt-in by lasers. there was even a cracked concrete brick with “i heart nature” on it. then we left, going back the way we came on a path trod many times before (this was not the one robert frost was thinking about, or if it was, than it has been trod many times since that autumn day when he wandered this way).

making puns along the way, we managed to get back to the parking lot in time for suz to go get the car and drive over to where we were looking at a replica of the hut we just saw and a life-size statue of the man himself. as we got into the car we saw the same patrolman from before drive up, lock the gate and stop a car on its way out. it was 8:03 and we were off to concord (pronounced conquered) to see emereson’s house and to eat dinner there (which, we realized, was humorously appropriate). we had bought some food at b.good in cambridge and were pretty hungry by now. emerson’s house was (although we didn’t really care or even expect it to be otherwise) closed. sitting on a rock wall across the street we ate and laughed not wanting to have visited conquered (written concord) without having seen the sights, we drove through town and out the other side, turned right onto a rock-wall lined side-road to the place where a gun went off and the shot was hear around the world, that is, the “north bridge” of concord (pronouced conquered) where the american revolution began. after a romantic walk in the fading light of the setting sun, we crossed a well-designed wooden bridge and saw not only the monuments on either side, but a grave to british soldiers who died there so long ago. we also saw william emerson’s (ralph waldo emerson’s father) house, and the place where emerson would write his essay entitled “nature.” it was most certainly a beautiful place, but it too was closing soon (at sunset, which gave us more time than at walden pond but not too much). we turned around and went back to town, parking the car next to the masonic temple and wandering the old city streets with recently refurbished shops and galleries. the ice cream parlor was also closed, so we jsut enjoyed each other’s company and the fresh air of the early summer’s evening.

we ate some ice cream when we got home and then talked about suz’s work for a while. all of this was not what i had initially anticipated when we set out, deliberately seeking something, but it most certainly was entertaining, ironic, and perhaps even educational. in other words, i enjoyed it.

lessons in patience.

waiting, wanting, wondering.

who sees tomorrow’s yesterdays? and who can say what will grow in the space between?

self-imposed limitations and boundaries. walls of words. macro communication. proximity over distance equals velocity.

so close and yet a world apart, for a moment.

i turned my back in your moment of pain, singing psalms of sorrow and consolation. now i stand back to see God’s miracle.

principled solitude.

with a forward-look i step, waiting to see what news the mail brings.

buried in my work, i am both here and there, distracted by yesterdays and tomorrows, but not todays.

i am now, for the third time in more than that many years, the newest employee in hbll special collections. i am working in the web-division as something of a liaison between the curators and the world-wide-web. i just started yesterday, but will have to take a hiatus for a month as i am leaving on a study abroad for the far-off reaches of… utah, on a integrated natural history course.

but it feels so nice to be back amidst books hundreds of years old, photographs in cold storage, bibles and books of mormon in all sorts of languages and editions, and more than 4000 year old cuneiform tablets. it feels good to be back among the curators and directors, where the feverish pitch of brad westwood is matched only by the nonchalance of books going nowhere anytime soon. where russ is as solid as ever, and susan like a mom to everyone.

it is hard to say what it is exactly that has drawn me back there so many times. it is slowly becoming ubiquitous with my entire experience here at byu, and i find it ever-so-appropriate that i have found my way back there now. it was, after all, the first place on campus that i visited after returning.

but for all of you out there looking to learn something about the web and don’t know much already, keep a look out and you will find some links to the tutorials that i am currently creating for the curators to help teach them how to make use of recent additions to the library’s website.

here is a picture of the library, plus a link to both the main page and special collections as well.

old blog new blog, writing thoughts to write thoughts. i have enjoyed keeping a journal for the reason that it gives me a forum for thought, but sometimes binary is cold and sterile and preferred. re-entering social circles and searching out friends among an unknown sea of faces is daunting, but not unconquerable. i guess i am up for the challenge and should be helped in the near future by a location shift - giving me a geographical advantage not presently enjoyed.

my thick skin will be useful here as well as there, however, as i will be entering territory of shattered heart-glass and sharp gravel misunderstandings of the soul. or perhaps the lack of misunderstandings and the clear truth (whichever one hurts more). masochistic tendencies of bygone years resurfacing, but that was what she called them, not me. i always thought of such titles as truth and righteousness. what has happened to her i wonder, her short hair and eyeliner.

days gone by. how many roads have i walked down? who keeps track of the miles and the distances?

gone are the days of thoughtlessness, of frustrations, of yearnings.

i thought this wouldn’t hurt too much, but what if it does? who is to say? and when will I know? pathways leading to pathways, roads to road, and where does this all end?

friend or lover. both, or neither.

today is the setting of yesterday and the dawning of tomorrow–and somewhere in the twilight of it all there is a thing of beauty. i am looking for something, for someone, and somewhere, somehow i will find her.

worthy woman. righteous man. going hand in hand.

plain text versions never released. this is self-talk, publik only in form but not function. ugyhogy mi;rt? csak mert.

(written the 17th of February 2003)

My Dear Young Friend,

I hope this letter finds you well. It has been some time since my last letter, but as you were clear to note, you are still in —. I have, I must say, enjoyed reading and rereading your letter.

Knowing you as I have come to, I understand how integral a part of your life traveling is and will continue to be. You have experienced much and gleaned from you experiences more than I would have even hoped. I quote your letter: “Traveling expands the soul, enlarges the mind, not so much for what is seen but for the physically symbolic nature of the act.” For those willing to allow it, traveling mirrors inner journeys and explorations.

I too have found that the mind needs room to move and to grow–to change. Locations can indeed hold strong associations, some of which inhibit the changing of ideas. In other words, new ideas often do not fit into old situations. Yet, beware of beliefs you hold, and from where they originate. Trust yourself, but remember that there was a time when you did not know yourself well enough to understand and create beliefs true to form. Thus, oftentimes it is the perceptions that need to change. Beware that you do not use traveling as a means of escape from this, but as a means of exploration.

Perhaps it is best that you sit still for a moment, a conclusion that seemed to evolve throughout your letter. Now is the time, as you put it, “to seek out hidden caverns deep within: to explore and map for future use.” This understanding of the inner paths is indispensable in the life of one such as yours. As you explore, you will learn that which will frighten you; yet you will also discover that which will impassion you.

Do not be dissuaded by what you first see as you travel deep within, for the darkness is piercing and will confront you with its awfulness. Many turn back at their own inner gate for fear of what lies beyond; still others go halfway only to become lost in the darkness.

If you choose to dig, dig deep.

And yes, your fear is well spoken. Being alone, truly alone, is mortifying–for we are our own worst enemies. We defeat our own ambitions, we dismantle our own work, and we question ourselves more than any other person ever will. But do not fear yourself, do not fear being alone, for once your inner demons are faces and conquered they become your greatest pillars of support. It is said of great men that they have turned their weaknesses into strengths. Often, however, many are too afraid of themselves and their personal weaknesses to even begin the long process.

Change requires much time alone and indeed you will find yourself alone more often than not. There are those who always crowd themselves with others, drowning out their inner voice, flooding their “inner caves” with what they will. For those who choose to explore, such cannot be the case, for there are places within which no one will ever go, or ever see, but you. No one ever will, for you are the only one who can dare to go and then to return.

Do not lose hope when you find yourself in the darkest of nights, in the deepest of caverns, completely alone. Press on and take note. I cannot tell you what you will find further on, but always remember how far you have come. I long for the days when we will walk in the fresh mountain air, where the rocks are full of beauty and wild flowers grow in the cracks. Until we meet again.

Your Dearest Friend,

A.C.

i am back…. believe it or not, but it is true…

my re-entry to the world of blogging is perhaps one of the best indicators of this truth.

once again you will all be able to peruse my thoughts, photos, and travels….

for now, however, i will be somewhat sedintary, travling in a much closer proximity to my temporary home than perhaps i’m wont to, but what i am most excited for is that my feet will take me places with family and friends, whom i have been away from for a long, long time…