Private Collections

My father had always enjoyed collecting things.  He collected postage stamps like many people in his generation, and later also hoarded a considerable stash of foreign coins that he acquired through many travels abroad.  I was quite familiar with his old stamp collection, as I used to marvel at this mounted display of World Warr II-era stamps from the Republic of China, and was particularly impressed by his collection's portrayal of the destructive force of inflation during wartime, as the stamps' denominations increased from the equivalent of pennies to literally hundreds of thousands of dollars over a few short years.  Throw in a few thousand more stamps from other countries and handfuls of foreign coins, and you can get yourself a pretty good education in world history, georaphy, economics, politics and nature.  Dad got me hooked on stamp collecting, and eventually entrusted his old stamps to my care.  He often reminded me to take good care of them, as they would eventually be worth quite a pocketful of change.

Throughout the years, Dad also collected other things, and I'd often notice him purchasing various trinkets not out of necessity, but simply to add to his collection.  However, I did not realize the extent of his habit until after he passed away unexpectedly four years ago, and I was left with the task of sorting out his stuff with my grieving mother in Taiwan.  Yes, he bought a lot more stamps - the folders would fill up an entire bookshelf, and he had a bunch of coins neatly separated by countries into little plastic bags.  Those did not surprise me.  Neither were the thousands of picture postcards and hundreds of collector (i.e., unused) Taiwanese and Japanese phone cards.  However, I also saw that he had 7 or 8 working pedometers (I'm sure he only wore one at a time), no fewer than a dozen bibles in 4 different languages (various translations of English and Chinese, as well as Taiwanese and Japanese), cabinets full of expensive, aged cognac and whiskey, hundreds of books that were of mostly local political interest, and several hundred magazines in dozens of titles on politics, food, history, travel and culture.  I was fairly certain that he did not read most of what he purchased, but they looked impressive on the bookshelves, and the glossy photographs and quality paper stock gave the magazines the illusion of lasting value.  I did my best to preserve the stamps, but had neither the time, energy nor space to handle the others, and they have larely been discarded or given away, or will soon be.

In the Bible, a rich young ruler asked Jesus what he needed to do to obtain eternal life.  Jesus replied that the man needed to sell all his possessions and follow him, and he went away sad because he could not part with his many possessions.  Ironically, Dad has eternal life now, as he became a Christian during his later years, but he had to leave everything behind for his loved ones to clean up.  The experience of handling my father's earthly stuff has caused me to view my own things in a new light, as I no longer have much desire to focus on my collections.  Sure, I still enjoy finding postage stamps that I have not seen before, but I am no longer obsessed with increasing my philatelic cache.  I want to make sure that I spend more effort on things of eternal value, so that my loved ones won't have to throw away all my stuff after I complete my earthly journey.  I'm tossing away my old magazines, and I am only keeping one subscription.

Why the magazine subscription?  I need to keep my mind occupied in the bathroom....

"Do not store for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19-20)