“. . . therefore I quote.” Robinson & Staeheli

Posted on by Julie Stiles Mills

I read, therefore I quote.

Today’s quotes come from Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season (I’m quoting the 1982 edition.)

“At first, some people have a hard time explaining exactly what’s wrong with Christmas because on the surface everything looks fine. But when they take a closer look, many of them realize that their celebrations lack depth and meaning. It’s not enough that Christmas be a family birthday party or the biggest social even of the year. They want to be moved by the celebration.

When they decorate, they want the result to be more than a beautiful house. They want to look around them and be filled with an air of expectancy . . .

. . . At Christmas, people want to reach down inside themselves and come up with feelings that are better, bigger, more joyful, more loving and more lasting than their everyday ones . . .

. . . But for most people, the real problem with Christmas isn’t that they’re spiritually bankrupt or that Christmas is devoid of meaning. It’s simply that they haven’t taken the time to define for themselves what’s most important about Christmas . . .

. . . While they have planned the details of their celebrations right down to the kind of cranberry sauce to serve at Christmas dinner, they haven’t stopped to ask themselves the all-important question: Why am I celebrating Christmas? They rely on habit, other people’s priorities, commercial pressures, or random events to determine the quality of their celebrations. But this is rarely successful. People need to make conscious choices, because Christmas offers them so many possibilities. It’s a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the pleasures of family life, the importance of friendship, the delight of creating a beautiful home environment, the need for world peace, the desire to be charitable, and a host of other important values. When people don’t sort out which of these ideas are most important to them, the celebration can seem fractured and superficial . . .

. . . When people haven’t resolved these larger issues, they find it hard to make the dozens of small decisions that confront them every day of the holiday season . . .

. . . we’ve been encouraged by how quickly and easily people can decide what’s most important to them. All they need to do is to become more aware of the need to make choices, have some sense of what those choices are, and set aside a little time to reflect on them. With just a few minutes of prayer, meditation or conscious decision-making, most people gain a much better sense of how Christmas should be.”

The authors included an exercise at the end of this chapter to help readers take a look at all the values competing for our attention at Christmas. For a print friendly version of this exercise in PDF, CLICK HERE.

“To complete the exercise, read through the following ten value statements . . . cross off those that have no importance to you and add any equally important ones that we have not included. Then decide which of the remaining values is most important to you. Put a 1 beside that sentence. Then find the one that is next important to you and put a 2 beside it. Continue in this manner until each statement has been assigned a different number. Even a value that has a low priority to you can still be important. Remember: 1 is the highest and 10 is the lowest.

Christmas is a time to be a peacemaker, within my family and the world at large.

Christmas is a time to enjoy being with my immediate family.

Christmas is a time to create a beautiful home environment.

Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Christmas is a time to exchange gifts with my family and friends.

Christmas is a time for parties, entertaining and visits with friends.

Christmas is a time to help those who are less fortunate.

Christmas is a time to strengthen bonds with my relatives.

Christmas is a time to strengthen my church community.

Christmas is a time to take a few days off from work and have a good time. “

I’m going to get FirstHusband to work this exercise with me. I’m also going to ask FavoriteSon and PinkGirl to do it too. I think it will be an interesting and helpful process. Hope it helps you too!

“. . . therefore I quote” Thursday: If you have a quote to share from something you’ve read recently, feel free to comment and/or include a link to your own “quote” post.

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A Honda Odyssey meme

Posted on by Julie Stiles Mills

I’m inventing a Honda Odyssey meme for personal research and camaraderie.

If you own (or have owned) a Honda Odyssey, you are tagged! And if you DON’T own an Odyssey, but you have experience in these areas, please, join in!

What year is your Odyssey?
2000 (old and paid for)

What’s your mileage?
Approximately 147,500. The windshield sticker says I need an oil change.

How many times have you moved your perfectly adjusted seat on accident while exiting the vehicle because your leg hit the slider controls on the side of the seat?
Approximately 1,460 times. That’s every day for the entire time I’ve owned it.

How many of you can no longer adjust the volume of the radio using the knob and must instead use the volume up and down buttons on the steering wheel?
Been doing that for over a year.

How many of you have replaced the back door springs?
Yep. I think it was a recall.

How many of you got a new, free transmission under recall?
Yep.

How many of you, when using the breaks first thing in the morning after parking outside in the cold, make loud, echoing screech noises as “the dew on your break pads is burned off by the friction.” (That’s what they tell me anyway.)
Yep. My neighbors LOVE me.

And lastly, THE Honda Odyssey question that brings out the stories:

How many times have you had the automatic doors repaired?

Once already, but I need them repaired again. Our current multiple workarounds are holding, hopefully till after Christmas:

1. Approaching the car with all the doors locked, I unlock the car with the key fob . . .

Side note. “fob?” I’ve said that word many, many times before without thinking about it. I have never typed it before and doing so prompted a Google search. Wikipedia says “The word fob may be linked to the low German dialect for the word Fuppe, meaning “pocket”, however, the real origin of the word is unknown.” okay, then.

. . . and turn on the automatic doors. I open the driver’s side auto door with the driver’s door control inside the van.

2. To get the passenger side automatic door open, someone has to open the front passenger door, reach back and unlock the auto door, and THEN pull the auto door handle from the outside of the vehicle – really hard. The door will then “automatically” open.

3. When I start the car, none of the dash lights indicate a door is open. When I put the car in gear, the buzzing begins. I can sometimes stop the buzzing by pressing the driver’s door control for that side to close the door. Lately, that has no effect and the buzzing continues.

4. So I turn off the automatic doors while the car is in gear. The buzzing stops and the doors won’t budge, even when I put the van in Park.

5. When we arrive at a destination, if anyone is sitting in the seat next to the passenger side auto door and wants to exit (Very rarely, these days. NObody wants to sit there.), the driver (me) must again turn on the auto doors with the driver control and sometimes the door can be opened from the inside. Sometimes not, requiring the passenger to climb out the driver’s side auto door or climb up to exit via the front passenger seat.

If the passenger doesn’t want to climb or if someone happens to be in the front passenger seat and has pity on them, they will get out of the van and pull the door handle hard from the outside, thus releasing the trapped passenger.

6. When everyone is to exit the vehicle, and the passengers have escaped using one of the above methods, the passenger auto door must be manually locked by reaching through the front passenger door.

Because this step is often forgotten, I have begun to turn off the auto doors, preventing movement.

7. Finally, I lock the van with the key fob and walk away.

Did I mentioned this van is paid for? That’s what makes it all worth it. I’m singing a little song to myself right now, to the tune of “nanny, nanny, boo, boo”

“I don’t have a car payment. I don’t have a car payment.”

And the back door isn’t broken. It’s just quirky. You have to unlock it 2 to three times with the key fob between trying to open it. Or, as FirstHusband has begun doing – use the key to manually unlock it.

“I don’t have a car payment. I don’t have a car payment.”