Bean And Rice Again?

The wind was to our back, Jesus Christ reigned,
and strangers waved, as they passed on the lane.
We did our ABC's in a three room school house;
people seemed to really care, charity was a fre-
quent dare, and Sundays were an all day affair:
Morning, noon and night the Word was shared.
There were tent revivals in summer time, which
kept the fans busy, and nobody misunderstood
when the preaching was on sin. But the Times
said: God is dead, and moral relativism set in.

We ate beans and rice one year for nine months,
they call that a recession these days, but we all
made it through just fine. TV was the craze, a-
dored those Three Stooges, the Little Rascals,
Spanky and Alfalfa. Sister tattletaled often, and
learned a hard lesson; spankings galore, deserv-
ed and needed more. Mom and dad quarreled
often, but they stuck it out through hard times,
and you didn't have to worry about there being
many crimes. Life was good, there was no need
for a legal finding, as a man's word was binding.

Then the Jones moved next door, the priorities
changed, even mom went to chore; we all want-
ed more, a piece of the pie, the American dream,
but what fantasy was that? When men put wo-
men to toil outside the home, the family nucleus
began to unravel, with latchkey kids left alone to
their own devise. Did the material things become
our god, or where did we really go poor? Don't
get me wrong, generations need modulation, but
the pendulum swinging beyond the blue-yonder?

Longing for the much simpler black and white;
not the overwhelming gray that we see today,
but humanity has evolved, godlike commission,
there's talk of a new creation, with prosperous
motives, not to mention weapons of mass de-
struction. But some things are exceptional: folks
flying planes into towers, killing distant neigh-
bors by the thousands; MAD seemed to lurk,
but a new paradigm is manifestly in the works.

There are many faiths called the great religions,
but whatever happened to Jesus? God Bless
America is in vogue, all the fashion, but there
is confusion on authorization. Prayer is judicial
in the sanctuary or the drawer, but Christ is
offensive to the media crisscrossing. Maybe
time has past me by, but I don't like this new
god, devised by the politically correct, hallow-
ed ground crowd; longing for the former things,
hard times ahead, maybe beans and rice again?

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