My mother-in-law
drinks her morning gin
out of a pint-size Mason jar,
and self-righteously prides herself
for not wasting water by adding any in
and for not pouring or drinking
before her biscuit and red-gravy breakfast,
usually about eight a.m.
now that she’s long retired
from abusing victims of public housing mismanagement,
where she was the chief resident mismanager.

When I tell her I am joining a Unitarian-Universalist faith community,
she is curious to know what kind of Christian church that could be
with such a high-flautin’ pretentious name.

Another true and undisputed,
yet unfortunate,
fact about my mother-in-law,
is her unquestionable faith
she is Tyler Perry’s sole and soul inspiration
for Medea,
but more of an Anniston, Alabama version,
where even Reverend King feared he would meet his Maker
without being sufficiently medicated on HolySpirit gin
from a faithful morning Mason jar.

“Universally what” she wants to know.
“Universally white folks crazy for jihad
or a crusade for Christ
or a great Inquisition,
or whatever you call
these terrifying strange fruit days
and cross-burning nights.”

No, kind of the opposite of jihad.
The Universalist side of our hypenated aisle
came from New England Enlightenment Age roots,
giving voice to ecstatic experiences
of universal salvation.
We are all wounded sinners
but we are also all following our healthy trust and truth paths
toward cooperatively universal self and other forgiving light
despite
co-creating this wounded EarthTribal life
together.

“Get behind me Devil!”
“If we’re all saved
then why haven’t the KKK
and the white nationalist NRA
and the sanctimonious RightWing white evangelists
and universal voter registration denouncing preachers
in Washington
got the HolySpirit’s good news yet?”

Well, that’s a good question.
I suppose that’s because they haven’t yet experienced
the other side of our hypenated aisle,
the Unitarian,
interdependent WinWin cooperative healthy-wealth
of Earth’s radically democratic passion
for compassionate ego/eco-liberal love relationships–
Like a mother’s womb
for her unitarian-universalizing temporary resident.

“It’s probably just the gin,
but you’re finally starting to talk some sense.
Or not.
I need a refill in this Mason jar.
So, what do you believe in,
besides universal integrity’s health potential?”

We have seven principles,
beginning with defending global ego-rights
to be cooperatively held and celebrated
in equal dignity and respect,

And ending with our active hope
that healthy life is
and should be
and would be
and could be an interdependently compassionate experience
if we had less wounded egos
and felt more ecologically and theologically connected
to all living webs
transubstantiating all past and future health-wealth regenerators.

“Like a good buzz
without the hangover.”

And, like a healthy impulse
without the compulsive long-term addictive side-effects.

“Now was that your Universal judgment speaking
or your Unitarian compassion?”

Like health and wealth,
and yang and yin,
and light and dark,
universal and unitarian invite best cooperatively together
and not pushing each other competitively apart.

“Like a good universal buzz
with a unitarian hang together
to not hang strange fruit apartheid,
just like Jesus said.”