David Howenstein Blog
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This blog focuses on putting spirituality into action, and is based on the book JUMBO JUMBLE (by this blog's author).
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 Illustration by Miki Howenstein
…….. The act of creation could mean:
Author’s Comment: What a wonderful time to reflect on the gifts that you bring to those around you and the world at large. As 2020 closes its doors, a new beginning lies ahead in 2021. With the pandemic and much social unrest around the world, we are called to bring about a more uplifting and hopeful future. A weary world anxiously awaits empowering and creative action. It’s a fruitful opportunity for you to make your creative ideas real, for your own good and for the good of the world.
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 Illustration by Miki Howenstein …….. yet creating opportunities and spaces for concerned people to take action requires direction and leadership. In this sense of the word (rather than meaning to lead a group of followers), true leadership means listening closely to others to find the strengths they can use to build their self-esteem and forge important connections to enhance their sense of self-worth. By building up others, leaders diminish their own importance to the movement since others become capable of sustaining the initiative. Rather than making others dependent on her, a leader’s true work lies in providing a vision of the good life which fills people with hope, keeping this hope alive, and making people believe in themselves sufficiently to carry it out. In this sense, leadership is multi-faceted, and each person can enact some aspect thereof which is most suitable to her. (From page 346 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”)
Author’s Comment: Bringing people of different kinds together in action-oriented activities, and instilling a spirit of hope, appreciation, and self-esteem—this is the mission of JAMBO. And to go beyond the various human and nature building relationship so that people build confidence to take leadership positions (providing activities, building up strong ties, instilling others to “break out and become leaders” in their own ways)—this is the challenge for JAMBO. Today’s world is too often structured to keep people of different political beliefs, religions, social status, etc apart. In our meaning of action and leadership, we bring them together in the spirit of working cooperatively to better the world (based on the foundation set in the book Jumbo Jumble).  Illustration by Miki Howenstein
…….. A primary ingredient towards building a better future is faith (and hope), strengthened with a sincere belief that such a future is possible. Such hope can be nurtured by moving towards a higher version of yourself by doing good works and being open to life in all its forms. Faith is cultivated through a consistent effort to move towards others striving to do the same, while being constantly on guard against ideas, people, and actions which destroy your faith. With faith firmly inculcated into your being, you become different and see others differently, for you are then securely grounded in a world of hope. …. You dare yourself to develop new paradigms and envision a sustainable future. You come to see the cynics’ arguments for what they are—empty. For example, skeptics often use fear as a way of halting progressive ideas, like the idea that moving towards an environmentally harmonious lifestyle means depriving ourselves of the good things in life. But such arguments no longer bear any weight for you, for you clearly see that moving in that direction is far more spiritually and deeply fulfilling, while you also build on life’s most precious gifts—light-heartedness, a sense of enchantment, security and freedom from fear (exactly those treasures which our current unsustainable lifestyles are stealing away from us). Envisioning a future that restores these gifts is the first step towards bringing them into reality.(From page 312 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”) Author’s Comment: “You’re too small to make a difference!” “If we adapt a ‘Green Deal’ our lives will be impoverished.” “The radical Left (or the radical Right) will take over if we don’t aggressively fight them.” These kinds of messages abound in the media. And they’ve generally been proven wrong For example, look at Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa - one person surely made a difference. Agroforestry benefits both nature and humanity. When we create a just society, few people move to the extremes (either left or right). It is up to us, and that’s where you are important too. Form your vision and move to live it out. You can be one piece in the puzzle to create a better world.  Illustration by Miki Howenstein …….. Closer contact with nature blesses us with spiritual experiences which “naturally and spiritually” engender within us a desire for less material goods (since the pleasure of contacting “holy life” gives us much more contentment than any superfluous goods ever could). In addition, it offers hints towards finding ways of developing technologies which make our lives better while also benefitting the natural environment of which we are an intricate part.
Spiritual work, including frequent contact with nature and anything else that bring us closer to the source of life, results in a gratification and joy which we bring to our everyday lives. Surely, there will be dark days and down cycles, but the overall trend of your life will move you towards a self-created serenity that consistent spiritual work brings. This is precisely the reason why one of the main points of this whole paradigm is that spirituality is uplifting and fun! (From page 280 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”) Author’s Comment: It’s a delight to more deeply experience the other living beings which we share this spiritual experience with. Connecting with nature helps us to grow in the spirit and become more content with our lives. This is the reason why Jambo activities focus on activities in natural settings. When this becomes your way of life, increasing serenity floods your being and your blossoming instills hope and wonder in those around you. What a joy!  Illustrated by Miki Howenstein Here are another two concepts which go hand in hand. Within the individual, the quest for integrity means striving for a harmonious fitting together of the different aspects of the self—mind, spirit and body. In your integration with the life community, you find ways of promoting your own growth at the same time as positively cultivating your natural and human communities. To do so means that you must make an effort to cohnnect with all of the aspects of the self in order to become whole. In becoming whole and matching your beliefs with your actions, you become fully alive and can proceed to develop and live out visions for the good of life. You seek to find those things that you believe are good and build on them.,…. (From page 246 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”)
Author’s Comment: Herein lies two of the greatest challenges in today’s world. While being more and more digitally connected, our face-to-face connections have increasingly withered, and the COVID-19 situation has only worsened it. At the same time, our “encouraged isolation” may provide us mental space to work on integrating the various aspects of self and prod us to search out ways of more holistically harmonizing society when we can again socially freely. That is, find ways of breaking down the barriers that separate rich and poor, black and white, human society and the rest of nature, etc. In the crises of today lie the hopes for a new, more enlightened way of life tomorrow.  Illustrated by Miki Howenstein
The concepts of dignity and inclusion are necessarily intertwined, for those who are excluded from a circle of any kind lose their sense of dignity and their feeling of being worthy as human beings. Correspondingly, those who experience a deep sense of worthiness feel as if they are a part of something bigger—a group which they value, the larger society, or feel a strong connection to nature or a spiritual discipline. When society comes to perceive each person and all of life as being inherently valuable, extremism has no place to wrap its tentacles around and eventually withers away. When we treat people with dignity, they naturally come to treat others in the same way, creating a strong bond that becomes increasingly all-inclusive. The meaning of “all-inclusive” herein entails the idea of all life as being fundamentally valuable and encourages individuals to act on that, while encouraging others to do the same. At the same time, when we blindly accept individual behaviors damaging to our universal ideals, like someone who insists on his right to downgrade others, we destroy our own sense of community and inclusiveness, for such a person drives a wedge between people. Continuing to treat such people with dignity while refusing to accept such behavior helps to undermine potential acts of cruelty,…. (From page 212 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”) Author’s Comment: Jambo works to create an environment where everyone is welcome and respected. Participants are encouraged to do the same. And, as this passage clearly states, anyone who treats others disrespectfully or in a degrading manner will be asked to change their ways. If they cannot do so, Jambo can no longer accept them because their presence would necessarily destroy the dignity and inclusivity we are trying to create. In turn, we hope that this kind of atmosphere will have a positive effect even on those who have hardened hearts.  Illustrated by Miki Howenstein ……….. At a deeper, life-engendering level, very few of us know what our purpose is, what we truly want, and then continue to live unhappily without knowing why.
It requires a lot of persistence and discipline to first find your purpose (through constant soul-searching and reflection) and then still more to embody and live it out. Scary words—persistence and discipline— and they sound like as much fun as going to boot camp for intensive training. Yet, it is through making tireless efforts at “creating and implementing” your true purpose that a long lasting and steady contentment permeates your entire being. And when that happens, you will look back and wonder how you could have wasted so much time chasing those ephemeral desires, like money and beauty—the comings and goings over which you have limited control. Determining your true purpose and moving towards it tenaciously grants you mastery over your life’s direction—even if the final goal is unattainable—giving you a passion for living. (From page 180 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”) Author’s Comment: In today’s society, we are inundated with advertisements and messages telling us what we need to be happy, leading us to think that using this product or buying this new gizmo will fulfill our desire. Yet, as this passage states, it is only your searching for your own life’s purpose and making painstaking efforts to move towards it that can instill your life with a rich contentment which you previously felt unattainable. And the more energy you put into it, the greater the degree of satisfaction which follows.  Illustrated by Miki Howenstein The majority will claim that spiritual precepts are beautiful although they cannot practically be lived out in our dog-eat-dog world. On the contrary, the most fallacious “fantasy” is that we can continue to live on a relatively benevolent planet without their full implementation. Fortunately, there are some basic universal values on which the majority of the world’s people can agree. The disagreement arises on the optimal application and achieving the proper balance between these values. (from page 146 of the book “Jumbo Jumble”)
Author’s Comment: Jambo strives to put the “universal ideals” (such as compassion, tolerance, respect for life, etc) into practice. Since the people and chapters of Jambo come from all over the world and all walks of life, we provide a living, learning platform where people can share and care. Particularly leaders of the various chapters are encouraged to create unity amidst diversity in the hopes of building a more sustainable society. April 3 (in book “Jumbo Jumble”)  Illustration by Miki Howenstein  The epitome of nature’s transmutation I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)
JR: Look at the wisdom of trees, which shed their leaves in autumn, conserve their energy in the cold of winter, and then upon the return of the warm days of spring, explode with flowers and the leaves which sustain them. We can benefit much from their humble example, through finding ways to release our pent-up energy in ways that make us grow rather than cause us to self-destruct. Anger is a powerful force, and it is up to you whether or not to direct it into a constructive channel. PP: When was a time that you couldn’t control your anger and you let it fly with no holding back? What was the result? Looking back, could you have better transmuted it into a beneficial force? PA: The passive-aggressive personality—how difficult to deal with. Why doesn’t the person simply state how he’s feeling forthrightly and so others know where he stands? Because he hates conflict, and that is who I am. When younger, I would usually be calm and cool, even when anger was boiling within, only to have it come to a head when I punched the car or refrigerator or banged my tennis racket on the ground. Some painful knuckles and wasted money (for new rackets) taught me that these weren’t the best ways to express my anger. Writing and being more forthcoming with others when I’m angry have helped, and the writing helps me (and hopefully others) as a source of learning and dealing constructively with my anger. March 12 (from book "Jumbo Jumble")  Illustration by Miki Howenstein  Give me your time, and I’ll grant you serenity SON: 'Daddy, how much do you make an hour?'
DAD: 'If you must know, I make $50 an hour.' SON: 'Oh,' the little boy replied. 'Daddy, may I borrow $25?' The father was furious, 'You march yourself straight to your room and think about why you are being so selfish.’ After about an hour or so, the man went to the little boy's room. ’I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier' said the father. 'It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the $25 you asked for.' "Oh, thank you daddy!' he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills. ‘Why do you want more money if you already have some?' the father grumbled. ‘Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the little boy replied. 'Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.' The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little son, and he begged for his forgiveness. JR: What is the value of working hard and making a lot of money if you ignore those who are most important to you? We’ve come to treasure being busy over spending time with loved ones. When you get old, you are much more likely to remember the precious times you had with family and friends than the work you were doing. Sharing time and experiences with the people you really care for brings both immediate gratification and remains as a treasure which can be dug up for recollection time and again in the future. PP: Give your undivided attention to someone close to you for 15 minutes. Your completely BEING THERE for her is much more important than the amount of time spent. Create an atmosphere enabling both of you to share deeply. PA: Being the hypocrite that I am, I preach on the need to make time for meditative reflection and spending quality time with people, only to end up having so much on my plate that I rarely do either. While this book uplifts me day after day, I usually rush through the day’s passage since my mind is boggled with what has to be done. It has taken the passing of a dear friend to realize the error of my ways. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Create the space to uplift your spirit daily and treasure the good people in your life. |
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