Aldea Spiritual Community

Love, Period (Part 1) | Jake Haber, Don Hegeman, Arlene Marko, Helga Hibben

Check out the first part of our new series "Love, Period" where we brought in a panel to explore the different dimensions of love. 
 
Quotes:
 
“If there is one theme that emerged again and again—from our questions, from the answers, from the vast troves of sacred data the AI was analyzing—it was this: love. Love is everything. It is the most divine gift we have. When we give it away, we are given more of it. When we come back to it in the present moment, we are in heaven. The meaning of everything is love. That is what the entire record of humanity drills down to. It’s all about love.” — Iain S. Thomas, Jasmine Wang & GPT-3 
 
“Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to," not a 'falling for"; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.” —Irvin D. Yalom
 

True Community (Part 4): A Greater Purpose | Jake Haber

Check out the finale of our series "True Community" as we explore our greater purpose as a community! 
 
Quotes: 
 
M. Scott Peck: 
“Community-building first, problem-solving second.” 
 
Rachel Held Evans:
“If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for for verses with which to liberate or honor women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, you will find them. If you are looking for an out-dated, irrelevant ancient text, you will find it. If you are looking for truth, believe me, you will find it. This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not "what does it say?", but "what am I looking for?”
 
Mark 4:31-32:
"The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the tiniest seed you can sow. But after that seed is planted, it grows into the largest plant in the garden, a plant so big that birds can build their nests in the shade of its branches."
 
Shane Claiborne:
“[Jesus] tells his listeners that the kingdom of God is like mustard, which grows like a wild bush. I once heard a farmer say it is like kudzu, and a city preacher compare it to the wild weeds that grow out of the abandoned houses and cracks in the sidewalks. The mustard seed’s growth would have been familiar to first century Jews and its symbolic meaning unmistakably clear. It may have been growing in the wild around them as Jesus spoke.”
 
 

True Community (Part 3): How To Be Empty | Jake Haber

In today's episode, we explore the "emptiness" stage of community development, and how it invites us to let go of all that stands in the way of deep belonging. 
 
Quotes: 
 
M. Scott Peck: 
"Emptiness is the hard part. It is also the most crucial stage of community development. It is the bridge between chaos and community. When the members of a group finally ask me to explain what I mean by emptiness, I tell them simply that they need to empty themselves of barriers to communication."
 
Eckhart Tolle:
"Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.
 
M. Scott Peck: 
"Until such time as we can empty ourselves of expectations and stop trying to fit others and our relationships with them into a preconceived mold we cannot really listen, hear, or experience."
 
"The need for control—to ensure the desired outcome—is at least partially rooted in the fear of failure. For me to empty myself of my overcontrolling tendencies I must continually empty myself of this fear. I must be willing to fail."
 
"If your theology or ideology is different from mine, it calls mine into question. It is uncomfortable for me to be uncertain of my own understanding in such basic matters. On the other hand, if I could convert you to my way of thinking, it would not only relieve my discomfort, it would be further proof of the rectitude of my beliefs and cast me in the role of savior to boot. How much easier and nicer that would be than extending myself to understand you as you are."
 
"As a group moves into emptiness, a few of its members begin to share their own brokenness—their defeats, failures, doubts, fears, inadequacies, and sins. They begin to stop acting as if they “had it all together” as they reflect on those things they need to empty themselves of …that in order to truly listen they have to truly empty themselves, even of their distaste for “bad news.” If they don’t, it becomes necessary for me to point out to its members that they are discouraging the sharing of brokenness."
 
Tao Te Ching (48):
“Do nothing and everything is done” 
 
Hafiz:
“Love is the funeral pyre where I have laid my living body. All the false notions of myself that once caused fear, pain, have turned to ash as I neared God.”
 
Buddhist Proverb: 
“The value of a cup is its emptiness”
 
Discussion Questions: 
In what ways do we try to control our experience of community?
What are some healthy ways to “share our brokenness”?
 
 

True Community (Part 2): Embracing The Chaos | Jake Haber - Extended Version

Join us for Part 2 of our series "True Community" as we look at the journey from "pseudo-community" to "chaos community". Along the way, we'll be challenged to live with authenticity, stop avoiding conflict, and show up as our true selves—no matter the risk. 
 
Quotes: 
 
Tim Keller: 
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything.”
 
M. Scott Peck: 
“Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving.”
"Chaos is not just a state, it is an essential part of the process of community development… In the stage of chaos individual differences are, unlike those in pseudocommunity, right out in the open."
 
Carl Jung: 
“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order” 
 
Anais Nin:
“In chaos, there is fertility.”
 
Deepak Chopra: 
“All great changes are preceded by chaos"
 
 Friedrich Nietzsche:
 “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
 
Robert Drake: 
"Look deeper through the telescope and do not be afraid when the stars collide towards the darkness, because sometimes the most beautiful things begin in chaos.” 
 
Luke 12: 49-53
 “I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be—Three against two, and two against three; Father against son, and son against father;Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, Mother-in-law against bride, and bride against mother-in-law.”  
Crisis = 危机 (wēi jī)
危(wēi) = "danger
机 (jī) = "a crucial point, when something begins to change.”  

True Community (Part 1) | Jake Haber

Join us for part one of our new series "True Community" as we envision a type of community where diversity is celebrated and individual paths of spiritual growth are encouraged! 
 
Quotes: 
 
Romans 12:4 
"In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around."
 
Ram Dass:
“The satsang is - within the mass culture - like little mushrooms here and there, and somebody, maybe a Christian and a Hindu and a Buddhist, come together; doesn't matter, because those are paths. They're paths to the One. But those satsangs are what the world needs. And as I say - heart to heart - that's what satsang is”
 
Frances Vaughan: 
"As we become increasingly aware of our global interdependence as a species, we can also deepen awareness of our spiritual interconnectedness. We cannot live in total isolation. The crosscultural communion of awakened souls may be a key to cocreating a sustainable future and living in harmony with the earth."
 
M. Scott Peck (A Different Drum):
“it recognizes that we are called to individuation, power, and wholeness. But it denies entirely the other part of the human story: that we can never fully get there and that we are, of necessity in our uniqueness, weak and imperfect creatures who need each other”
“A community of sixty can usually come up with a dozen different points of view. The resulting consensual stew, composed of multiple ingredients, is usually far more creative than a two-ingredient dish could ever be.”
“A real community is, by definition, immune to mob psychology because of its encouragement of individuality, its inclusion of a variety of points of view.”
"Because a community includes members with many different points of view and the freedom to express them, it comes to appreciate the whole of a situation far better than an individual, couple, or ordinary group can. Incorporating the dark and the light, the sacred and the profane, the sorrow and the joy, the glory and the mud, its conclusions are well rounded. Nothing is likely to be left out. With so many frames of reference, it approaches reality more and more closely. Realistic decisions, consequently, are more often guaranteed in community than in any other human environment."
"Put a human being in a truly safe place, where… defenses and resistances are no longer necessary, and the thrust toward health is liberated. When we are safe, there is a natural tendency for us to heal and convert ourselves.”
 
Howard Gardner:
“Discover your difference—the asynchrony with which you have been blessed or cursed—and make the most of it.”
 
 
 
 
 

(Re)solutions (New Year’s Eve) | Jake Haber

Check out our last message of 2023 as we usher in the new year by looking at the deeper meaning behind the word "Resolutions" and introducing our first series of 2024! 
 
Quotes: 
 
Albert Einstein:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
 
John 16:33:
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
 
Mark Manson: 
“A good life is not a life without problems. A good life is a life with good problems.”
 
M. Scott Peck: 
“No community can expect to be in perpetual good health. What a genuine community does do, however, because it is a contemplative body, is recognize its ill health when it occurs and quickly take appropriate action to heal itself.”
 

Mixed Blessings (Part 3) | Jake Haber

Check out Part 3 of our Mixed Blessings series as we look towards the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and all they have to teach us. 
 
Quotes: 
Charles Dickens: 
“squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous...hard and sharp as flint... secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster."
“(Our) courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
 
Alan Watts:
"Time is a social institution and not a physical reality. There is no such thing as time in the natural world - the world of stars and waters, clouds, mountains and living organisms. There is such a thing as rhythm - rhythm of tides, rhythm of biological processes... There is rhythm and there is motion. Time is a way of measuring motion."
 
Brian Mclaren: 
“Before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism, or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary nonviolent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society.”

Mixed Blessings (Part 2) | Jake Haber

Join us for Part 2 of our "Mixed Blessings" series as we explore the mixed blessing of our shiny, red noses. Like Rudolph, we all have things that make us special - yet the world will often tell us to hide our light. One aspect of the spiritual journey is rediscovering and reclaiming these parts of ourselves.
 
Quotes:
 
James Baldwin:
"It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.”
 
Matthew 2: 13-14, 19-23:
“After the wise men left, a messenger of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.
Messenger of the Lord (to Joseph): Get up, take the child and His mother, and head to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you it is safe to leave. For Herod understands that Jesus threatens him and all he stands for. He is planning to search for the child and kill Him. But you will be safe in Egypt.14 So Joseph got up in the middle of the night; he bundled up Mary and Jesus, and they left for Egypt.
And after Herod died, a messenger of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt:
Messenger of the Lord: You may go home now. Take the child and His mother and go back to the land of Israel, for the people who were trying to take the child’s life are now dead. So Joseph got up and took Mary and Jesus and returned to the land of Israel. Soon he learned that Archelaus, Herod’s oldest and notoriously brutal son, was ruling Judea. Archelaus might not be any friendlier than Herod had been. Joseph was simply afraid. He had another dream, and in this dream, he was warned away from Judea; so Joseph decided to settle up north in a district called Galilee, in a town called Nazareth.”
 
Leonard Cohen:
“Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.”
 
 

Mixed Blessings (Part 1) | Jake Haber

Join us for Part 1 of our new Christmas series - Mixed Blessings - as we look at the full emotional experience of the holidays, focusing on freeing ourselves from expectations.
 
Quotes:
Mignon McLaughlin:
“Life is a mixed blessing, which we vainly try to unmix.”
 
Buddha:
“In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”
 
Zen Proverb:
“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.”
 
John Lennon:
“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”
 
Luke 2: 1-7:
"About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire…Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel."
 
Laura Vanderkam:
“Every yes is a no, and every no is a yes”
 
Thomas Huebl:
“The crisis and the miracle are very close to each other”
 
Discussion Questions:
1. When did the holidays not go as planned?
2. What are some expectations you can drop this year?

The Frequency of Gratitude (Part 2) | Jake Haber

Join us for Part 2 of the Frequency of Gratitude as we think about what it actually means to express gratitude, how to enjoy life knowing that it's temporary, and letting gratitude be a call to action towards addressing the suffering in our world. 
 
Quotes: 
Meister Eckhart: 
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is - Thank You- it will be enough”
 
Karl Barth:
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude” 
 
Carl Jung: 
“If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude.”
 
Vision (Marvel):
“What is grief if not love persevering?”
 
Discussion Questions:
What are some ways that you can show empathy & compassion this Thanksgiving?
How does gratitude inspire us into loving action?