“Tiki-Tacky” [Veblen – Chapter 2]

I think the shift was made for real
When boys came back from fire and steel;
With Hitler gone, things settled down,
Then “Tiki-tacky” came to town.

The suburbs rose to house the troops,
Returned to baby-boom and fruit
Of expectations, and the ways,
And way of life we have today.

Conformity lets industry
Come right along, so all can be
Partakers in prosperity –
Disruption simply cannot be.

So we grew up, king of the day
Was businessman, just like today;
For interstitial-smoothing task
Rose to importance very fast.

And money was the tool he used
To smooth things out – sometimes abused –
Now global are the factories,
With businessmen still smoothing these.

The process, driven by machines,
On nature’s resource, really means
The attitudes between the two
Are what makes up this process new –

For gone is all dexterity;
Heuristics, which is where we see
Some craftsman work with rules of thumb;
And chance when blessed seasons come.

All these are gone, replaced indeed
With reasoned process on each seed
Or resource drawn from natural –
Our “Knowledge” brought this heaven’s hell.

It permeates like hog-barn stink
Our clothes, our skin (though scrubbed ’till pink);
Society is driven by this –
A time in need of heaven’s kiss.

Upon the Kingdom-layer each day
We get to live, and work, and play,
Freed from time-boundaries, slavish rules –
Whom Christ has freed, is free and cool.

“Cash rules all things around me”, say
The kids whose gang’s graffiti play
Upon the buildings where they live –
CREAM – acronym they freely give.

But up on Kingdom-layer too,
CREAM says it all, it too is cool –
Christ rules indeed in everything;
Soon Kingdom comes – then all may sing.

Thanks Lord for this.

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