The Geography of Hope: Navigating Change through the Tree of Life

Homily delivered 5/17/26 at Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation Crystal Lake, IL

(Prefer to watch? See it here.)

Good morning. Thank you Alan for inviting me and to all of you for welcoming me to your new space. 

I’m Sarah Woodard from Wisdom Grove, and I’m honored to be here with you this morning.

I understand what it’s like to move from your home and start over. I’ve lived in Illinois a little more than a year and before that, I spent about five years moving back and forth across the country searching for what I could only describe as my soul home.

I imagine you’re all feeling something like grief combined with hope. You're grieving the very real loss of your community’s home while at the same time trusting that this move will somehow be exactly what the community needs - even if you’re not completely sure how. Or at least you’re trying to feel that trust…

From my own experience, I know that the path is often winding and not always clear. It’s been that way since the Divine spoke the world into existence. 

I was raised in an interfaith family - kind of. It was more like a house divided with an ongoing war for souls on each side. For me, I leaned towards Jewish - sometimes by choice, sometimes not. At 46 I can now tell you with complete certainty that there were cosmic reasons for that. 

In the Torah (or the bible if you prefer), there is a story called L’ech Lecha. It’s a tale I’m sure everyone here knows - though perhaps not by that name. It’s when G-d speaks to Avram and Sarai and tells them to go forth on a journey to a place they don’t know and promises them many blessings when they do. Being of strong faith, they take the Divine up on this and set off on their journey. While it’s not explicitly stated, I’d imagine there’s still a fair amount of fear combined with excitement. When they arrive, G-d does bless them and as part of that, their names are changed to Abraham and Sarah - the H being the symbol for the Hebrew word life (Chaim). 

As fate would have it, this was my Torah portion for my Bat Mitzvah. It’s not something we pick, it’s Divinely planned based on birth date and where that aligns with the scroll. And - as fate would also have it, my mom - whether by accident or design - left the H off the end of my name on my birth certificate. From the moment I could spell, I insisted in the way only a stubborn four-year-old can that the H needed to be there. It was legally added as part of my Bat Mitzvah.

When I started my cross-country moves six years ago, I kept hearing Debbie Friedman’s song based on this Torah portion in my head. You see - it was my own personal version of L’ech Lecha - and perhaps this move for your community is something similar.

Perhaps then, too, it’s also no surprise that my work now focuses on the Tree of Life, the Etz Chaim.

With all of this moving around - as hard as it was on me and my 3 cats (who thankfully have forgiven me) - there was one thing that kept niggling at me just under the surface.

Even during the last move from New Hampshire to Illinois, traveling through deep red parts of the country and not sure what to expect - one idea kept surfacing…

Underneath all the ideological differences, underneath the politics, the dogma, the doctrine, underneath the words, boxes, and labels we use to classify things as our brains insist we must - there’s a Universal Truth. With each turn of the U-Haul tires on the road, with each passing mile, I became more determined to uncover that Truth and share that message with as many people as possible.

Once I got settled in Illinois - which felt like a warm hug just like Alan suggested for this homily, I was able to open up and allow that wisdom to come to me. And - though surprising at the time, but perhaps not surprising now - that Universal truth came in the form of something I’d been studying independently since college. The Tree of Life.

Not as a literal tree - though they have much to teach us, too. As the sacred geometry found in Kabbalah. 

Sharing the entire Tree and how it acts as a Universal truth Unifying all religious and spiritual traditions would take more time than we have this morning. Instead, I’d like to focus on one section - the middle. Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet. 

Traditionally, this Tree is considered a structure that humans are taught to progress through in a predetermined and prescribed way. To me, that felt like more doctrine, so I set it aside, and that’s when the Universal Truth shined through.

For this section specifically, Chesed is thought of as Love - the kind of unconditional and unattainable love that many organized religions teach G-d is. When put into real life practice, too much of this makes you a doormat. Gevurah is boundaries - not the “healthy boundaries” talked about in mental health wellness - the strict, unyielding boundaries found in some faith traditions. When practiced in real life, too much of this energy makes you closed off - unable to give or receive love - or anything else.

In the middle, Tiferet combines love and boundaries to create a sacred container where EVERYONE - regardless of faith, gender, sexuality, race, species, age, or anything else feels held, supported, loved. And that - I would argue - is the Truth all spiritual and religious traditions are trying to help us live. They all exist as ways to help us navigate the chaos of being a soul living a human existence - different language, different surface structures - underneath them the message is love and acceptance. Not tolerance - actual acceptance without inclusion varnishing. If that’s a new term for you, it’s with good reason - I coined it! Basically, it’s describing token acts of inclusion that change nothing about the power structure.

And here’s a secret - G-d has rules. They’re called commandments and while G-d will still love us if we make a mistake and break the rules, G-d also expects them to be followed. That - to me - is exactly what Tiferet teaches us.

So, you may be thinking “great, Sarah, but how do we live this way when the world feels like it's unraveling and when I walk out of these doors I’ll be back in it?” And that’s a great question!

I’m not going to tell you it’s easy to live from that Tiferet heart space - it’s not. I’m not going to tell you there’s a magic formula - there isn’t. What I will offer is this:

Change starts with you and you can live your life as an example that will create ripples. You don’t have to make big changes to make a big ripple. Maybe you’re someone that says yes to everything - even when you don’t really want to. I get it. We’re socialized to do this, especially as women. For one week, practice saying yes when you want to and no when that feels more aligned. It might only be once - and that’s progress you should celebrate and build on.

Or - maybe you’re someone who says no to everything, no matter how good it sounds. I get that, too. It’s protective. Past hurts and trauma make it seem easier to say no, stay closed off, and not get hurt again. For one week, practice saying yes when something feels right. Again, it might only be once and it’s progress you should celebrate and build on.

The other areas of the Tree have a similar structure - one side is contraction and the other is opening. The middle is where they come together in a balanced way.

Right now, we’re living in a society that’s split between the two sides of the Tree. And while I certainly have my opinions of which side I feel is more quote unquote right - the Universal truth is that it’s neither. The middle way is the balanced way - and the only way we can get back there is if we work at it.

For people in leadership positions, this might mean reaching across the aisle to find commonalities and a path through the noise that both sides can live with. For those of us just trying to live our lives in the midst of everything, it might mean listening with more openness - trying to understand each other rather than convince the other person of our rightness or prove them wrong.

I’ll be honest here - I find this incredibly hard. I’ve been on the receiving end of anti-semitism and other forms of bullying since I was 4 or 5 years old. When I’m in the same space as someone espousing that side of the discourse, my nervous system is activated and all I want to do is run back to the woods - to the trees that have loved and held and taught me from the moment I was born.

And if I do, if I allow my panic to lead in those moments, the trees hold me and love me and then tell me to get back out there and get to work speaking messages of Unity, to get back to work being a beacon of light and hope.

And in doing that - they’re teaching me Tiferet all over again. “Yes, Sarah, you’re allowed to feel in every cell of your body how hard this is,” they say. And also, “No, Sarah, you’re not allowed to completely shut down and hide because that won’t change anything for anyone,” they remind me.

In this way, trees - and all of Nature - teach me where I am on the Universal map known as the Tree of Life - and show me in the most loving way possible where I need to grow.

I’ll probably always feel activated when I’m in situations like that. I KNOW I’ll always rely on Nature to love me and hold me and show me the path back to Tiferet - to love with healthy boundaries - and to guide me and teach me in every area of the Tree. 

I also know that I’ll keep trying. I’ll lick my wounds, do the work to keep healing and growing and putting myself out there in ways that feel vulnerable. I know that will be scary. And I know - deep in my soul - deeper than the pain and the fear and the trauma - that I’m loved. I’m held. And I’m safe.

And so are you.