Aldea Spiritual Community

Discovering Your Internal Universe | Cody Deese

On Sunday, we were joined by Pastor and Author Cody Deese. His new book, Discovering Your Internal Universe, is a powerful and deeply personal exploration of his journey with anxiety—revealing how our greatest symptoms can often become doorways to our deepest inner truths.
Cody is also the pastor of Vinings Lake, a spiritual collective in Georgia whose journey mirrors Aldea’s in many ways. It was a gift to share space with someone walking a similar path of reimagining spiritual community with honesty, courage, and depth.
 
Purchase Discovering Your Internal Universe now:
https://a.co/d/hjBByg4
 
 

Growing Pains (Finale): Inviting Accountability | Jake Haber

Growth isn’t always graceful: it’s gritty, uncomfortable, and often asks us to face the gaps between who we are and who we want to be. For the series finale of "Growing Pains", we explore the role of accountability in real transformation...not as finger-pointing, but as an invitation to grow.
We’ll journey through cringe-worthy personal stories, "The Coldplay Incident", and honest reflections on how we resist being called out… and how we can choose to lean in to an accountability that is both deeply personal and profoundly communal.
 
When grace meets accountability, growth happens.
 
Quotes:
 
Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. — Gloria Steinem
Without accountability, we drift; with it, we thrive. — John C. Maxwell
Accountability without compassion is cruelty. — Krista Tippett
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” — Proverbs 27:17
 

Growing Pains (Part 8): The Power Of Pruning | Jake Haber

Pruning is not just a gardening technique... it’s a profound spiritual practice. In this week’s message, we explore the deep wisdom behind letting go, saying “no,” and shaping a life that aligns with what truly matters.
 
From the necessity of cutting back, to the surprising freedom that emerges when we stop trying to “do it all,” pruning teaches us how to focus our attention, reclaim our energy, and make space for what’s next.
 
We talk about why society’s obsession with “more” often leads to burnout, how every meaningful “yes” is built on a thousand “no’s,” and how pruning isn’t a sign of failure...it’s a choice for growth, balance, and purpose.
 
This is about more than minimalism: it’s about living intentionally. Whether in relationships, work, spirituality, or purpose, pruning invites us into a deeper, more focused way of being.
 
Quotes:
 
“Whatever is not yours: let go of it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness and benefit.” — Buddha (Na Tumhaka Sutta)
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” — William James
 
 

Growing Pains (Part 7): Expanding Faith | Benjie Danquah & Jake Haber

Check out this in-depth and intimate conversation with Benjie Danquah - a speaker, coach, educator, and self-proclaimed mystic.
 
In our chat, Benjie is vulnerable and transparent about a faith that is continually evolving and expanding. We discuss what it means to be authentic even when it comes at a cost, and what it means to be a "mystic".

Growing Pains (Part 6): Leaning In | Jake Haber

Life often tempts us to distract ourselves from discomfort...through screens, shopping, sugar, or endless busyness. But what if the very things we try to avoid are invitations to deeper truth, healing, and transformation?
 
This message explores the idea of leaning into the hard places rather than turning away. From the psychological wisdom to ancient parables, we’ll uncover how our fears, symptoms, and triggers can become guides toward greater wholeness.
 
Through breath, inner work, and community, we can move from fragile to resilient...and even into anti-fragile, where challenges don’t just test us but fuel our growth.
 
Quotes:
 
Pema Chödrön: “Rather than trying to rid yourself of your problem, go deeper into it. If you become familiar with fear, compassion arises.”
James Hillman: “Follow the lead of your symptoms, for there’s usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul.”
Carl Jung: “Where your fear is, there is your task.”
Ramana Maharshi: “We cannot mend the whole world. If we try to reform the world without reforming ourselves, we cannot succeed. Instead of trying to cover the whole earth with leather to avoid the thorns, it is enough to wear sandals.”
Nassim Taleb: “Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire.”
 

Growing Pains (Part 5): Transcending Certainty | Jake Haber

In this week’s message, Jake explores the tension between certainty and uncertainty, drawing from both personal loss and the wider challenges we face as a community.
Through stories of family, grief, and the mysteries of the universe, we’re invited to see that faith isn’t about having all the answers, but about how we live in the questions.
From quantum physics to everyday love, from community risk to the unknowns of the future, this talk encourages us to embrace life’s unpredictability, discovering that love, presence, and connection are what sustain us in the midst of uncertainty.
 
Quotes:
 
Richard Rohr: “Faith is not about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.”
Adyashanti: “To live in the mystery, to dwell in the unknowable — that is the practice of presence.”
Alan Watts: “Risk is essential. There is no growth without risk, and no meaningful life without risk.”
Deepak Chopra: “Uncertainty is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom.”
Ram Dass: “We’re all just walking each other home.”
 

Growing Pains (Part 4): Transforming Together | Kevin Skinner & Jake Haber

For Part 4 of our Growing Pains series, we were joined by none other than the founder of Aldea—Kevin Skinner!
 
in this powerful and heartfelt conversation, Kevin & Jake explore the dynamics of growth, change, and transformation in individuals and communities. 
 
Kevin walks us through some of the pivotal moments in his journey as the pastor of Aldea, as well as some life-changing insights from his current work as a Director of Culture and Organizational Change. 

Growing Pains (Part 3): The Wounded Healer | Jake Haber

Pain, scars, and setbacks often feel like they disqualify us...but what if they are the very things that qualify us? In Part 3 of our Growing Pains series, we explore the archetype of the Wounded Healer, a universal pattern showing how our struggles can become the ground of compassion, service, and deeper connection.
Drawing from the Greek myth of Chiron, insights from spiritual teachers, and real-life reflections, this talk unpacks how the wounds we carry might actually reveal our strength, deepen our empathy, and open us to healing both ourselves and others.
 
Quotes:
Kahlil Gibran: Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Rumi: The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
Stevie Wonder: Shortly after my birth I became blind. Now, that was a blessing because it’s allowed me to see the world in the vision of truth, of sight. See people in the spirit of them, not how they look. Not what color they are, but what color is their spirit?
Helen Keller: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.
Henri Nouwen: When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.
Pema Chödrön: Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.
 

Growing Pains (Part 2): Messages From The Garden | Kathleen Roberts

In this message from Aldea’s Growing Pains series, Kathleen draws on her love of gardening to explore how plants can teach us about growth, change, and co-evolution. She weaves together stories from the plant kingdom, reflections on Aldea’s journey through challenges, and the ways individuals and communities evolve through both success and failure.
 
Using the metaphor of pollination, Kathleen highlights how interdependence shapes all life and how Aldea continues to adapt, thrive, and blossom through the contributions of its members. This message invites us to see our community as a living, evolving organism...one that grows richer, more colorful, and more resilient as we nurture and shape it together
 
Quotes:
 
"All the accomplished gardeners I know are surprisingly comfortable with failure. They may not be happy about it, but instead of reacting with anger or frustration, they seem freshly intrigued by the peony that, after years of being taken for granted, suddenly fails to bloom. They understand that, in the garden at least, failure speaks louder than success. By that I don’t mean that the gardener encounters more failure than success (though in some years he will), only that his failures have more to say to him—about his soil, the weather, the predilections of local pests, the character of his land. The gardener learns nothing when his carrots thrive, unless that success is won against a background of prior disappointment. Outright success is dumb, disaster frequently eloquent. At least to the gardener who knows how to listen.”
— Michael Pollan
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” — John Muir
“We are not separate from the web of life, but strands within it—each tug and vibration shaping the whole.” — Thích Nhất Hạnh
“The whole universe is one great symphony of mutual conditioning and interdependence.” — Dōgen Zenji
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — often attributed to Charles Darwin
“Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.” — Wendell Berry
 

Growing Pains (Part 1) | Jake Haber

We all know that growth is rarely easy. It often comes with discomfort, vulnerability, and the need to let go of what no longer fits. Just like the aches of childhood, the growing pains of life can be messy, confusing, and even painful...but they are also the very signs that something new is unfolding.
 
In the opener of our new series Growing Pains, we explore what it means to outgrow old systems, beliefs, and relationships, and how stepping forward into the unknown often reshapes us into more expansive versions of ourselves. Growth stretches us beyond the familiar and invites us into a bigger world, even when it feels risky or uncertain.
 
At the end, Jake makes a major announcement about the future of our community. Join us as we step into the next chapter together!
 
Quotes:
 
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” — Carl Jung
“In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” — Neale Donald Walsch
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
“Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” — Kahlil Gibran
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey.” — Wendell Berry