To surrender oneself willingly to truth,
to earn it,
in every sense, to allow
a voice to the great unbegotten
mystery and, beyond that,
to listen,
is asking for trouble.

Don’t doubt it. But prepare for the aftershocks.
Store water, and cans of tuna fish.
Plan an escape route, and a rendezvous point.
Write messages with lipstick on the bathroom mirror
reminding yourself…
where the flashlight batteries are stashed,
and how to find the pole star.

Keep a list of essentials
posted on the refrigerator: poetry, theology, an aria—
whatever works:
a ticket to Ravenna,
a menu from Provence,
a ballad to be sung at the tomb of Rachel.

And plan to go.

By Holly Horn, Interim Minister, First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn, New York.