Mansion Over the Hilltop
Bev and I spent about thirty-six years of our lifetimes in Southern churches. That's 46% of our lives. And during that time we got a heavy dose of a particular genre of music. As well as a particular culture surrounding our music practices.
That culture included singing schools, three or four favored song books, thus collections of music. Singing played a major role in the lives of the people we spent the majority of our time with and heavily influenced what we believe/d.
It never occurred to us to question what we were singing. Nor did our religious neighbors who shared similar kinds of culture. That is, until we started to pay attention to what we so dutifully sang every Sunday, at Christian camp, and in the impromptu sing alongs we experienced.
One of our favorite songs to poke fun at was "Mansion over the hilltop" which Bev and I called the Christian materialism song. That song looks forward to a day when God's people will have their own mansion, walk on streets of gold, etc. Bev and I couldn't sing those songs because it didn't accord with what be deeply believe the Bible says on this subject.
The moral of this little story is the importance of being intentional about what your diet is. I wish I had. That's all.