Aldea Spiritual Community

THRIVAL (Part 4): Mindfulness | Arlene Marko

In this episode, guest speaker Arlene Marko shares an in-depth look at Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and how this incredible tool for thriving came into her life. 
 
Quotes: 
 
Thomas Merton: 
"Let us never forget that the fruitful silence in which words lose their power and concepts escape our grasp is perhaps the perfection of meditation. We need not fear and become restless when we are no longer able to "make acts", rather, we should rejoice and rest in the luminous darkness of faith. This resting is a higher way of prayer".  
 
Jon Kabat-Zinn: 
"Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. Through this, we gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation, and healing" 
 
 

THRIVAL (Part 3): In The Marketplace | Jake Haber & Carl Swart

Join us as Jake and Carl have a conversation about what it means to integrate our spirituality into our ordinary lives - including our careers and obligations. What does it look like to be "in the moment" if it's not a moment we particularly prefer?
 
Zen Proverb:
“Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.”
 
Tish Harrison Warren: 
“In the creation story, God entered chaos and made order and beauty. In making my bed I reflected that creative act in the tiniest, most ordinary way. In my small chaos, I made small order.”
 
Thich Nhat Han:
“If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’ What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink.”
 
 

THRIVAL (Part 2): HEAL | Jake Haber

Join us for the second installment of our THRIVAL series as we look at the shift from living unconsciously to consciously healing. 
 
Quotes:
 
Carl Jung: 
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
 
Blaise Pascale: 
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
 
J. Krishnamurti: 
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
 
James Clear: 
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
 
Paracelsus:
"Sola dosis facit venenum” (only the dose makes the poison). 

THRIVAL (Part 1) | Jake Haber

What if we could do more than just survive? What if we could thrive? Throughout this series, we'll be looking at the various aspects of life where we can experience "thrival".
For today's episode, we look at our current cultural moment, asking why we have so many of our needs met, yet often remain unfulfilled. Is there more to life than just making it through? 
 
Quotes: 
 
John 10:10
“I came to give life with joy and abundance”
 
Ken Wilber:
“The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life.... A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight.”
 
Baal Shem Tov: 
“Let me fall, if I must fall. The one I will become will catch me.”
 
Carl Jung:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”
 

Love, Period (Part 4): Emergent Love | Jake Haber [Extended Version]

Check out the closer of our "Love, Period" series as we talk about the great love story of the cosmos, including a new perspective on evolution, healed femurs, the survival of the fit (enough), Opera, Mother Teresa, and a giant shift in culture. 
 
The Podcast version of this message also includes an extended conversation with the Aldea Community. 
 
Quotes: 
 
 "Emergent properties are characteristics of a system that arise from the interactions and relationships among its components, but are not present in the individual components themselves” 
 
Brian Swimme: 
“The earth was once molten rock and now sings operas”
 
Stuart Davis:
“If Mother Teresa came from clay, maybe there’s more to evolution than a little DNA”
 
Rabbi Marc Gafni:
"Within the human world, there is also a progression of love from ethnocentric to worldcentric consciousness. This means... an expanding circle of love and care— from one’s own nation or religion (ethnocentric) to every human being on the planet (worldcentric).…It is not an ordinary love story but an Evolutionary Love Story whose very plotline is the evolution of love."
 
Thomas Merton: 
“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”
 
Joseph Campbell: 
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
 
 

Love, Period (Part 3): Loving Awareness | Jake Haber

Check out the third episode of our "Love, Period" series as we look at love through the concept of expanded awareness. How does pain increase our capacity for love? What are "spiritual altitudes"? What exactly is "loving awareness"? 
 
Quotes: 
 
Kahlil Gibran:
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain"
 
Rumi:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
 
Veronica Tugaleva:
"To love unconditionally does not mean to give your unconditional time. Sometimes, to love completely, we must never see someone again. This, too, is love - giving someone the freedom to exist and be happy, even if it must be without you.”
 
Matthew 5:43-48:
"You have been taught to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you this: love your enemies. Pray for those who torment you and persecute you— in so doing, you become children of your Father in heaven. He, after all, loves each of us—good and evil, kind and cruel. He causes the sun to rise and shine on evil and good alike. He causes the rain to water the fields of the righteous and the fields of the sinner."
 
Ram Dass:
“I have a holy table with pictures on it of Buddha and Christ and Maharajji, my guru.... And I used to have Caspar Weinberger”— the secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan—“on the table, but I now have replaced him with Bob Dole. So in the morning, I say, ‘Good morning, Christ! Hello, Buddha! Good morning, Maharajji! Hello, Bob.’ And I see how far I have to go yet. Because after all, [Bob Dole] is merely God in drag, saying, I bet you won't recognize me this way, will you? They're all faces of the beloved.”
 
“(I’ve) read the words of great masters and others about death. Now, when I piece it together with my heart, not with my intellect, I find nothing to fear if I identify with loving awareness. Death becomes simply the final stage of my sadhana”.
 
Rob Bell:
“If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.”
 
James Baldwin: 
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

Love, Period (Part 2) | Sylvia Skinner

Hear from Sylvia Skinner about the origins of our motto, "Love, Period", and how her definition of love has evolved throughout her life. 
 
Quotes:
 
Mahatma Gandhi: 
“Where there is love there is life.”
 
Buddha:
"Love is a gift of ones' inner most soul to another so both can be whole.”
 
Rumi:
“Love is the water of life - jump into this water.”
 
John 13: 34-35
“A new command I give you:  Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

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”?