We love our blue 2007 Honda Odyssey minivan, still trying to squeeze more mileage out of it, It’s latest problem though is that its chewing through car batteries way too fast. AAA installed a new car-battery in 2021 and we’ve had to replace it a few times since then! The alternator is good, they ruled out some other things. Our latest AAA technician spent some extra time to try to find the “Parasitic Drain” that is draining out the battery much faster than it should. He thought it might be the connector csble and tried to tighten that but it might be something as distant as a sliding door rear latch, which needs some further looking into.
In the meantime, until a mechanic can isolate and repair that energy leak/drain, we can’t let the old blue minivan sit idle too long. We have to start and drive it pretty regularly, so the alternator can recharge whatever battery loss while the car was idle. Gotta keep starting it and using it.
It so happens that we were preoccupied with this saga in the last 90 minutes before a January winter Cozy-Shabbat, so there has to be some inspiring message and life lesson takeaway from the elusive parasitic drain on our car battery!
We each have our store of energy, momentum, and interest. And its natural for this to get used up, spent, depleted by all that we do and invest of ourselves and go through each day. That’s why we have an “alternator” system to refresh, rejuvenate, build back our reserves of strength and energy and inspiration. This isn’t automatic in humans, it takes a conscious and deliberate effort in many different ways: spiri=..artually, mentally, emotionally and physically, to recharge our batteries,
But sometimes despite our best “alternator” efforts our internal batteries don’t charge and we might have a very difficult time even getting started. If our alternator efforts are at work and its still not charging, then we may be experiencing a parasitic drain… something is sucking the energy out and all the alternating efforts won’t recharge if that parasitic drain is too long and too persistent…
The parasitic drain in life could be a persistent nagging sadness, a melancholy, or maybe its an opposing interest or distraction, something that’s draining our energy, that’s not letting us recharge. It may be obvious and evident, or this may be more hidden and elusive, it may take some soul-searching to pinpoint, isolate and discover.
But until that parasitic drain is discovered and dealt with (which may also be a considerable fix) one thing we can do in the meantime is not let the car (or the self) sit idle too long. Start it up each day, be sure to drive it around, keep it going. Even with a parasitic drain, an alternator when it gets going, can do some recharging but the car has to be on and going for that to happen.
All the above is easier in cars than people. Our battery source, our alternator recharge and types of parasitic drains are much more complex and multi-faceted and also takes much more to work on and deal with. But the parallels are there, and there’s food for thought!