Collections

I do not remember how old I was at the time, but we lived in Roseland Park so therefore I had to have been younger than eight years old. For either my birthday or possibly some other unknown reason, my uncle presented me with a coin collecting kit. It consisted of a binder with places to insert the coins, and was designed specifically for collecting Jefferson nickels. I learned a lot of neat things about the nickel that I still remember today, things like the letter close to the date indicates where the coin was minted. A ‘D’ stood for the Denver mint and a ‘P’ indicated that the coin originated in Philadelphia. No letter was proof that the coin was stamped out in San Francisco. The Jefferson nickle first went into circulation in 1938, if I remember correctly.

My dad had a Maxwell House coffee can full of loose change that he had saved, and he graciously allowed me to sort through the coins to assist me in starting my collection. The can was almost full and using it helped me fill many of the open spaces in the binder from the onset. That is probably when the trouble started – there were still dozens of coins left over that were duplicates of what I had already inserted into the collection. I seem to recall that 1964 appeared to be a very popular year for Philadelphia nickels; I had a pile of them on my hands.

The days went by (or maybe hours) and finding coins to fill the empty slots became a challenge. So I did what any other child that age would have done. I simply filled in the empty spaces with whatever coin I could find in dad’s can regardless of date or origin. The binder was full and the collection was completed, at least as far as I was concerned. It was not long before my uncle paid us a visit and he wanted to know how my collection was going, and I proudly showed him the binder, filled with nickels that did not belong in there. He wasn’t too hard on me, but he let me know quickly that it was not the way to do things if you were going to be serious about a coin collection, and of course he was right.

I’ve collected other things in my life, from tractors to NASCAR memorabilia. I’ve been more careful about it; age and maturity will do that to you. But I was thinking this morning that I have been slack or even careless on other things that I have collected without realizing it. I’m talking about my collection of hours, days, and years.

In Genesis, chapter five, there is a phrase that is repeated several times throughout the chapter. I’ll start with verse five: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” This chapter traces the patriarchs of Genesis, from Adam to Noah, and after a brief description of each one’s life, it adds the phrase I mentioned. All of their days were x amount of years, and they died. I believe with all my heart that the Bible does not mince words, and each one is there for a purpose. The ‘days’ that they lived were for a set amount of years, and then they died. It is important to note the days.

Whether I’ve realized it or not, my life has been a collection of days. I can’t recall each one that I’ve lived. Some I can; specifically the good ones, or so they seemed to be at the time. There were bad days I do not wish to recall, and there were mundane days that seemingly had no purpose or meaning and were therefore forgettable as merely days that passed into non-discernable memories.

But each day of my life has begun with a promise, with a purpose and an opportunity to be lived and enjoyed. Each day is a gift and therefore a blessing from God to be treasured and should end with it being considered as having been time well-spent. Jesus taught that we should live life one day at a time, and sometimes I forget that. I get caught up in wanting the week to go by faster so I can get through to the weekend or to a holiday. In so doing I place things in my day-collection that have no purpose or reason for being found there.

I continuously need to be reminded that I need to embrace each day as a golden opportunity for reaching goals, for finding a purpose, for enhancing my spirituality, for showing kindness to others, for obtaining personal growth, and for refining my relationship to God. At the end of the day, these are the things that really seem to count as worthy of remembering and adding to my collection.