Bruce G. Charlton's Blog

Christianity is a ladder - not a scaffolding

To become a Christian is to climb a ladder; but after we have arrived at Christianity, we should kick away the ladder. 

Christianity is Not, therefore, some kind of an elaborate and specific scaffolding that our faith necessarily stands upon; not a particular form of platform-support that must be assembled and maintained Just So - or else it will collapse, bringing-down the faith and salvation of all who stand upon it... 

Very briefly stated: the place of Christianity is where we know the reality and nature of God; have understood what Jesus Christ offers us - and committed to accepting that gift.  

Once we know God and have chosen to follow Jesus - the ladder by-which we climbed to that place could, and probably should, be discarded...

Because otherwise our faith may come to depend on the perceived-integrity of the ladder - so that anything which seems wrong with the ladder will threaten our commitment. 

The evidences and experiences which constitute a ladder to Christianity, are as various as people. 

It may be some combination of a church or scriptures, or another institution, persons or books; or it may be some life experience - good or bad, happy or sad, joyous or suffering...

To reach the place of Christianity; we may have climbed a ramshackle and botched ladder, built from poor quality and weak materials, and including elements that have no good reason to be included.

None of that matters - so long as we do not feel obliged to defend the truth and integrity of every rung and the straightness and strength of the uprights! 

So long as we do not come to believe that our ladder is the perfect, only possible, and inevitably effective means of ascent!  

If your particular ladder is causing problems to your faith: then kick it away!

Creative artist envy is a mistake

This is the creativity of ecstatic engagement - which is valid regardless of its communication or appreciation 

I have been re-engaging with the work and person of Glenn Gould recently - a recurrent activity in my life ever since I discovered him in autumn 1978. 

Something that crops-up is that Gould, in some sense, "wanted to be a composer"... but never quite got around to it (producing a small handful of apprentice or light pieces merely); despite circling around this idea for some thirty-off years, and despite being par excellence somebody who did what he wanted the way he wanted.

And despite "re-composing" many of the pieces he played; at least in the sense of sometimes ignoring performing traditions and composers markings (e.g. for tempo and dynamics) alike.  

This could be regarded as an example of "composer envy" - a condition that afflicts many of the more thoughtful performing musicians - including the greatest conductors; who perhaps get nearest to composition without actually doing it. 

There is, it is often assumed, a scale of creative activity, in music that has the great composer at the top (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc); great conductors next (e.g. Toscanini, Stokowski, von Karajan); and then the great performers of the various instruments - with piano pre-eminent. 

But this is the top-end of another common assumption among those who appreciate the arts; that to be any kind of creative artists is intrinsically "more creative" than... anything else. 

So that being a musician is intrinsically a creative activity - as is novelist, poet, painter or another of the arts. 

So there is an "artist envy" among those who are not artists - on the basis that artists are more creative than non-artists. 

However, none of this is really true at the individual level. 

By my judgment; Gould was actually a far more creative person than any of the classical composers of his era. Great Classical music was not being composed in the second half of the twentieth century, nor since (although there has been a fair bit of good and worthwhile classical music.). 

I mean that the actual, recognized and prestigious, classical music composers from the 1950s onward, do not succeed in their creating to anything like the extent of Gould himself. 

Creatively-speaking; Gould really had nothing to envy among his contemporaries among composers. 

A similar situation exists with respect to poetry. I think there still exists a kind of "poet envy" among writers - I mean the idea that "everybody really wants to be a poet"... 

(Or, if not a poet, then a novelist or playwright.)

And yet, the actuality is that there has not been (IMO) a great poet in our Anglophone Western culture in the past half century and more (and very little real poetry of any kind or quality) - so what is there to envy? ... 

Nothing; except an unearned reputation for creativity in poets. 

To circle back to Gould; what his example teaches me is that our greatest creativity is found by pursuing our personal gifts and motivations - and not by trying to fulfil society-wide notions of creative activity. 

Gould succeeded in leading an exceptionally creative life- - mainly as a performer, but also there was a mosaic of other and complementary creativity in his radio documentaries, his rhapsodic essayistic writings - and even in his interviews. 

That is one thing. 

Secondarily; Gould was able to communicate his ecstatic states, insights and perspectives to a very high degree. That is why he the fascinating figure that he is; among those in sympathy with his nature and ideals.

This ability to communicate was rooted in Gould's exceptional abilities as a pianist, which were both technical-pianistic, and also expressive of a very high aptitude as "a musician". 

By saying that Gould was "a musician" at a high level; I refer to Gould's capacity to understand music - as contrasted with the ability to play it. 

It is possible, indeed usual, to have the one without the other - and to have both musicianship and performing technique at a high level, is very rare

The lesson from this secondary aspect of creativity is that high aptitude is not generalizable (almost by definition). 

That is: we can learn from Gould's primary creativity, because there are aspects of unique and valuable creativity in everybody - but we cannot learn from Gould's rare gifts of deep musicality and technical accomplishment, which are those aspects that made him a great communicator.   

The capacity to communicate primary creativity - to share one's own creativity with others - is something that cannot be depended-on: or, more accurately, something that we ought not to build our creative endeavours around.  

In other words: is not a matter of particular activities, jobs or roles; but instead something that is an aspect of our real selves. 

Everybody ought to be creative, ought to live-creatively - and creativity is a reality. 

Creativity is, ultimately, to live from-oneself in harmony with divine creation. 

It is a matter of contributing the consequences of our uniqueness of nature to divine creation.

What that actually means - for you and me, in actual practice - should be calibrated inwardly. 

Half-baked - yet pervasive - notions of artist-envy must be seen-through and set-aside; because creativity is not a social role; 

To be-creative is not (or, not for many people, and only for a few people) to be one or other kind of socially-recognized artist or other creative type. And even within creative types (musician, writer, visual artist) there is no objective hierarchy.

And we need to realize that the whole business of "living creatively" is often, I would say usually, muddied and corrupted by conflating it with the business of being appreciated and recognized by other people. 

In sum: We can and should all aspire to be creative, which all can do; but only a very few can ever be - or should ever be - publicly acknowledged as a creative artist that can communicate his vision.   

In the Western civilization now and for several generations; to be a recognized and prestigious "artist" of some kind, is close to being a guarantee of low-level or utterly-absent creativity of living; when creativity is correctly understood. 

Real-inner creativity and acknowledged-outer creativity are almost wholly dissociated: one exists usually in the absence of the other. 

The psychology of "creativity" is distinct from the sociology: the private from the public. 

This fact needs to be recognized if we are each to live as well as we might. 

  

NOTE ADDED: On reflection: This post doesn't seem to make its point very lucidly! I suppose what I'm trying to say is that in pursuing creativity, we ought not to be guided by cultural ideas of what constitute legitimate creative activities. Nor should we aim-at or push-for public recognition for whatever creative stuff we decide to do. Insofar as this happens naturally - fine. But the more we are trying to promote the product of our creative work, the less here-and-now creative we will become. In other words; what really mattes is active and aware creativity today (in whatever domain we intuit to be destined) - not praise and accolades for some-thing we feel to have been insufficiently-appreciated (a picture, poem, novel, performance - or whatever) that we did last week/ month/ year, or in our youth. And we should strive to be pleasing to our deepest selves and to God - or a handful of people we respect; rather than to focus on hopes of material or cultural rewards. 

Creative artist envy is a mistake - lessons from Glenn Gould

This is the creativity of ecstatic engagement - which is valid regardless of its communication or appreciation 

I have been re-engaging with the work and person of Glenn Gould recently - a recurrent activity in my life ever since I discovered him in autumn 1978. 

Something that crops us is that Gould, in some sense, "wanted to be a composer"... but never quite got around to it (producing a small handful of apprentice or light pieces merely); despite circling around this idea for some thirty-off years, and despite being par excellence somebody who did what he wanted the way he wanted.

This could be regarded as an example of "composer envy" that afflicts many of the more thoughtful performing musicians - including the greatest conductors; who perhaps get nearest to composition without actually doing it. 

There is, it is often assumed, a scale of creative activity, in music that has the great composer at the top (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc); great conductor next (e.g. Toscanini, Stokowski, von Karajan); and then the great performers of the various instruments - with piano pre-eminent. 

But this is the top end of another common assumption among those who appreciate the arts; that to be nay kind of creative artists is intrinsically "more creative" than... anything else. So that a musician is a creative activity - as is novelist, poet, painter or another of the arts. 

So there is an "artist envy" among those who are not artists - on the basis that artists are more creative than non-artists. 

However, none of this is really true at the individual level. By my judgment; Gould was actually far more creative a person than any of the classical composers of his era. Great Classical music was not being composed in the second half of the twentieth century. 

I mean that the actual, recognized and prestigious, classical music composers from the 1950s onward, do not succeed in their creating to anything like the extent of Gould himself. 

Creatively-speaking; Gould really had nothing to envy among his contemporaries among composers. 

A similar situation exists with respect to poetry. I think there still exists a kind of poet envy among writers - I mean the idea that "everybody really wants to be a poet"... (Or, if not a poet, then a novelist or playwright.)

And yet, the actuality is that there has not been (IMO) a great poet in our Anglophone Western culture in the past half century (and very little real poetry of any kind or quality) - so what is there to envy? ... 

Nothing; except an unearned reputation for creativity in poets, residually found among the poetically ignorant or insensible? 

To circle back to Gould; what his example teaches is that our greatest creativity is found by pursuing our personal gifts and motivations - and not by trying to fulfil society-wide notions of creative activity. 

Gould succeeded in leading an exceptionally creative life - mainly as a performer, but also there was a mosaic of other and complementary creativity in his radio documentaries, and his rhapsodic essayistic writings - and even in his interviews. 

That is one thing. 

Secondarily; Gould was able to that communicates his ecstatic states, insights and perspectives to a very high degree. That is why he the fascinating figure that he is; among those in sympathy with his nature and ideals.

This ability to communicate was rooted in Gould's exceptional abilities as a pianist, which were both technical pianistic, and also a very high aptitude as "a musician" (I mean the capacity to understand music). 

The lesson from this secondary aspect of creativity is that high aptitude is not generalizable (almost by definition) 

More significantly, the capacity to communicate primary creativity - to share one's own creativity with others - is something that cannot be depended-on: or, more accurately, something that we ought not to build our creative endeavours around.  

In other words: is not a matter of particular activities, jobs or roles; but instead something that is an aspect of our real selves. 

Everybody ought to be creative, ought to live-creatively - and creativity is a reality. 

Creativity is, ultimately, to live from-oneself in harmony with divine creation. 

It is a matter of contributing the consequences of our uniqueness of nature to divine creation.

What that actually means - for you and me, in actual practice - should be calibrated inwardly. Because creativity is not a social role; half-baked - yet pervasive - notions of artist-envy must be seen-through and set-aside. 

To be-creative is not (not for many people, only for a few people) to be one or other kind of socially-recognized artist or other creative type. And even within creative types (musician, writer, visual artist) there is no objective hierarchy.

However, the whole business of living creatively is often, I would say usually, muddied and corrupted by conflating it with the business of being appreciated and recognized by other people. 

In the Western civilization now and for several generations; to be an appreciated and recognized "artist" of some kind is close to a guarantee of low-level or utterly-absent creativity of living; when creativity is correctly understood. 

Real-inner creativity and acknowledged-outer creativity are almost wholly dissociated.

This fact needs to be recognized if we are each to live as well as we might. 

   

  

 

Western Geopolitics and "You just go around the house... Creating!"

My mother, who (in stark contrast with her eldest child) was a wonderful housekeeper, used often to say to me - in an extremity of exasperation - "You just go around the house... Creating!" 

By which she meant I was disrupting and disordering her meticulous and laboriously-achieved state of neatness and convenience; by carrying cups of tea or coffee, heaps of books and papers, around the house - sitting in the midst of an island of mess - and then leaving such messes behind, whenever I moved on to the next location. 

Now I know - from decades of failure - how hard it is to maintain a functional household; I can see that she was right to chastise me. At the time, I could not see what the fuss was about. After all, things just tidied 

This bit of Northumbrian dialect was based in an implied oxymoronic phrase related to "creating" chaos. 

I now find this notion to be very interesting - I mean the idea of creating-chaos; because - by my best and deepest metaphysical understanding - creation and chaos are opposites. 

...So that if one is creating, one must thereby be reducing chaos - and if one is inducing chaos, then one is destroying the-created. 

Anyway, pedantry aside; what was implied by my Mother's phrase was:

The process of at best care-less but often deliberately-motivated reduction of the-created towards a state of disorder, mutual conflict, dysfunctionality... chaos. 

In other words; my Mother's phrase characterizes the long-term and systematic geopolitical behaviour of Western civilization since around the millennium (and the end of the Eastern Bloc): 

They/ we just go around around the world... creating chaos. 

This strategy is pursued by multiple means: bribery and corruption (aka "foreign aid"). 

Also economic pressures of many kinds, such as "sanctions" (which are actually directed mainly at causing chaos within the West, but sometimes have the desired side-effect of causing chaos abroad). There is, of course, war all-over-the-place - and the attempts to induce more and bigger wars; by multi-pronged campaigns (and staging of "incidents") to induce previously amicable/ tolerant neighbours into becoming bitter enemies. 

This is happening All The Time - both at a large scale (e.g. in Asia) and at a smaller scale (e.g. in Europe). The "excuse" is to weaken enemies, so that "we" may be relatively stronger - but that excuse is shown as a lie by the top-down and simultaneous deliberate weakening of the West.  

The euphemistically termed "colour revolutions" - that are planned/ funded/ media-supported overturning of governments (all over the place; within the West as well as anywhere/ everywhere else) by those incapable of government - so as to install puppet regimes, which never last and lead to civil disorder or war... 

This has been done dozens of times since 1990; and the pace of global disruption is still increasing! At present hardly a week goes by without some such attempt, and many are successful. 

The result of "successful" West-induced regime change invariably turns-out to be chaotic, dysfunctional, damaging - because either there is careless indifference as to outcomes (so long as there is short-term selfish profit), or else destructive chaos is the real motivation.    

Chaos happens a lot nowadays, because - in an entropic universe - inducing chaos is Much easier than creation: much easier than creating cooperation, functionality, predictability. 

It Was Not Always Thus!

Consider the Roman Empire. Yes, it was a crushing top-down tyranny with many bad features; but there is not doubt that it created greater cooperation and functionality on a global scale. 

The Roman did not purposively destroy societal functionality, did not deliberately "create" wars and economic chaos, did not encourage and fund agents of destruction. 

Compare the Romans with what happens at present!  

  

The Roman Civilization - and a Roman House - aimed-at (and sometimes achieved) a society that was clean, well-ordered, and effective. 

This did not happen by accident, or as a by-product of deliberately inducing and sustaining chaos. 

Like the household of my childhood; Roman coordinated functionality happened because of clear purposes and plans, hard work, rigorous monitoring, and as a consequence of great efforts and labour.

And this was possible because of what-was-good in the Roman Civilization. 

It does Not happen nowadays, because there is extremely little that is good among those with power and in leadership positions in Western civilization. 

Or, to put it more accurately; because Western civilization is controlled by those whose affiliations are overwhelming evil. 

And the reason for this is clear and simple: the Romans were very religious. They recognized the reality of gods, spirits, and of transcendental values and purposes. 

Their lives were permeated by religious devotions, and a religious perspective. 

For a Roman, including the Roman ruling class and their servants: life therefore had ultimate purpose, therefore meaning; and this "Roman" meaning was linked to each Roman-person as a member of Roman society, a Roman family - a Roman role or job that contributed to the whole. 

For our ruling class, in complete contrast, life has no purpose, no meaning, no personal relevance - except for a selfishness and hedonism that becomes ever more short-termist, and thus more easily manipulated by the demonic powers.  

Of course, none of this strategic and purposive "Creating (of chaos)" by Western civilization is explicitly stated - of course, there are always pseudo-constructive, pseudo-moral, rationalizations for destruction - "reasons" why it is a good thing to destroy abroad and at home.   

Part of this disguise is to propagate the false dichotomy of chaos versus order. 

Acceptance of this error allows Them to depict order as necessarily oppressive, and chaos as if it were creative. 

Any nation that is reasonably functional will - like the Roman Empire - necessarily contain many attributes of oppressive order; and can therefore be depicted as objectively evil and deserving of destruction. 

So that the West inducing chaos by their interventions - civil war, starvation, disease, mass maiming and death - in a nation; is routinely spun as if we were doing them a favour! 

"Supporting" a nation is thereby made wholly compatible with action leading to destroying the functionality of that nation - often for many decades. This may then be an excuse for further intervention or takeover, or looting. 

Meanwhile the same is happening at home, within the West. Always disguised by quasi moral reasons; characteristically with either indifference to actual outcomes (lying about or ignoring outcomes); or by relabeling increased chaos and collapsing functionality as diversity, equity, freedom, vibrancy!   

Meanwhile actual creativity - which was our "USP" for several centuries - is at an all-time low in the West; because human creativity is real only when it contributes to divine creation; and our civilization is rooted in denial of the divine - which is de facto allegiance to Satan.  

The lesson from my Mother is that chaos is easy, functionality is difficult. 

So anyone indifferent or hostile to functionality has an easy time of getting what they want, and need not expend much effort in getting it.

The first and indispensable step towards doing anything constructive about deliberate global rampant chaos; is understanding the nature and reality of divine creation, and our-selves affiliating to it. 

    

It was a big mistake to conflate God the Creator and Jesus Christ (and the Holy Ghost)

Most Christian theologians through history have made the big mistake of conflating (in some theoretical/ mystical way) God the Creator with Jesus Christ. 
The mistake was made (IMO) because the theologians were monotheists first, and Christians only secondarily; such that they assumed the reality of Jesus's divinity "must" mean that he and God the Creator were ultimately One.
But this is untrue. 
Consequently there are plenty of rational people throughout the past two millennia who have coherently believed in God as Creator, but disbelieve the divinity of Jesus Christ - or reject what Jesus offered Mankind. 

Atheism on the one hand and non-Christian-theism (belief in God, but not the divinity of Jesus) on the other are - or should be - two different things; and they have different consequences. To be a atheist is to reject purpose, meaning and the coherence of reality - it therefore renders the atheist self-trapped in a state of sustained irrationality:  a kind of insanity.  
A non-Christian theist may therefore be rational and coherent.

The difference that being a Christian makes is additive to coherence: it is hope. 
For the not-Christian theist there is no hope for himself. Himself-specifically does not matter, perhaps is unreal, or perhaps the self will dissolve. 
The not-Christian theist will therefore intrinsically regard mortal life as a tragedy - because it contains much evil, because it contains change/ entropy (ageing, disease and disaster) - and because it is inevitably terminated utterly, by the death of himself.    
So a Christian has hope of resurrection and eternal life in a Heaven without death or evil. 

But, so far, this hope is located only beyond death. 
To believe only in post-mortal salvation is to recognize the coherence of reality, and to anticipate joy in eternity - but, of itself alone, this makes our present mortal life into (at best) merely an inferior version of Heaven, a time of waiting. 
It is belief in the Holy Ghost - which I understand to be our experience of the living presence of Jesus during this mortal life - that converts the remote hope of post-mortal salvation into something that can, potentially, make our present lives into something better than a mere putting-off of Heaven. 
The Holy Ghost is what enables integration of our our personal and present life with both salvation to come, and the reality of this world as purposive, meaningful and coherent. 


The usual "Christian" (but actually dogmatically monotheist) habit-compulsion conceptually to conflate the nature and role of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; is therefore not merely a theological error, but leaves people permanently-confused and systematically-misled - about the consequences of not being fully-Christian.  

The divine "purpose" for individual persons: God gives us what we need (but Not Only what we need)

Each person's life has "meaning" - and that meaning is related to divine purpose. 

I think this is quite clear, if you know what to look for - in your own life, and the lives of those you know and love. 

I mean that people always (sooner or later) get the experience/s they most need for spiritual development. 

However, that does not mean that every individual "automatically" learns from each such experience -- Indeed, very often, it seems that people do not learn from personal experiences that could be of great personal benefit. 

Or else people learn something wrong and contrary to divine purpose, from experiences; they choose to lean a lesson contrary to God's hope and intentions. 

For instance; when some adverse experience that could be corrective if properly understood; is instead used as an excuse or rationale for doubling-down on some sin; such as fear, resentment, or despair. 

But what makes all this less obvious is that not all of life is related to divine purpose. 

It is the nature of this life and world we are currently experiencing that there is entropy/ death and there is evil. 

What this means is that things happen that are Not part of the divine purpose. 

What God the Creator can do and does; is make the best of these things. 

So that if some-thing happens to a person that is simply the result of entropy (some degenerative phenomenon or disease for example); or a consequence of evil motivation or service to evil; then consequently God will create - such as later to enable something to be gained (or salvaged) from this adverse occurrence.   

All of this points at the need for discernment, because understanding and learning are inevitably confused and clouded by the nature of ourselves and this world; the process of discerning and learning is one requiring active participation and culminating in freedom to choose how to be, and where to go next. 

We must be able to discern which experiences are God given, and which are not. We must and inevitably do also work from our state of freedom. 

Creation is not something done-to-us. Divine purpose is that we participate in creation. 

And when an experience was not a part of divine purpose, we may need to be able to discern at what point God has (later) been able to present us with the possibility of deriving Good from evil. 

We make such discernments partly from that which is divine within-us; and partly (since the time of Jesus Christ) by guidance from the Holy Ghost... 

In other words, the capacity for true discernment is innate, and does not need to be derived from external sources - although, of course, external sources of guidance may be helpful in true discernment - just as external guidance is (here and now) more usually harmful. 

So much for this world we live-in, this mixed-world, this world that mixes divine creation and purpose with entropy and evil...

A further thing that God purposes that we learn is that this mixed world (the Primary Creation) may be escaped after death and the separation of our spirit from our incarnate form; because after death (and only after death) we may follow Jesus Christ through resurrection with eternal life; and into a Second Creation that is Heaven. 

Therefore, there will be divinely purposed experiences in this mortal life of ours (assuming we live long enough) that may be understood (if we are prepared to learn) as pointing towards the possibility of Resurrection and Heaven beyond death. 

i.e. Experiences that may (if we discern aright) be understood as pointing towards Salvation. 

Yet if, for whatever reason, we do not get such experiences during this mortal life (perhaps we die in the womb, or as infants) then such experiences as we need to be enabled to choose Heaven; will surely be provided after death. But again we are free to learn from them or not, and to choose Heaven or not. 

In sum: there is a divine purpose (or more than one purpose) for each person incarnated into this world; and this purpose is related to learning a lesson, or several lessons, during our life. 

Each person's purpose will be unique, because each person is unique - because each person had a pre-mortal spirit life before human incarnation  - which is why people are unique individuals from before birth. 

Because our purpose is unique, and because this world is a mixture of divinely created purpose with entropy and evil; discernment is required. We must recognize when we are being divinely taught; and when not...

But even when our life's happenings are due to evil Beings, or due to the innately entropic nature of this world - we should be alert to the ways in which divine creation can shape subsequent events, sooner-or-later to present us with possibilities for learning important life lessons.

Meaning and purpose are not "given": they need to be discerned...

We need to learn from them, and that is our job: we also need to learn the right (i.e. divinely intended) lessons from them.  

Christians should altogether stop saying "heathen" or "pagan" - when they mean (something like...) mainstream modern materialist atheists

The title says it all, pretty much. 

Christians should altogether stop saying "heathen" or "pagan" - since nowadays they don't exist - not really. 

Aside from the fact that both words originally meant something like rustics or country dwellers; ancient pagans and heathens were typically highly religious people; people who believed in the gods, the world of spirit, survival of the soul after death, and objective morality. 

As such, pagans and heathens bear near-zero resemblance to the great mass of not-Christians in the Western and developed world today. 

Nowadays, most people (including most self-identified Christians of whatever church or denomination) are this-worldly, materialist atheists. 

They/ we deny the reality or importance of the world of spirit; and believe that the universe of everything was/is not created - but instead arose and continued as a product of the operation of objective "scientific" factors that are alike indifferent to Humankind and each Man.

Nothing like modern materialist-atheists (i.e. like nearly all of us) was to be found in the ancient world. 

What is now normal, is something relatively new - merely several generations old.    

And the fact that there is no generally accepted term for almost-everybody-alive-now; is indirect evidence of how taken-for-granted this world-view has become. 

We need to adopt a new term to refer to this new kind of person, this new phenomenon; but to equate modern this-worldly, un-religious, aspiritual, anti-Christians with heathens and pagans, is just wrong. 

Notice: The Boss Baby (2017)

 

Having seen it at the cinema on release; I re-watched DreamWorks The Boss Baby (2017) yesterday, and really enjoyed it - even more than first time. 

The movie comes towards the tail end of that golden age of 3D animation which coincided with my kids growing -up; and which produced so many superb films that I think people got a bit blasé, and began to assume that this was "the norm", and could be expected to continue forever on autopilot. 

It wasn't and didn't; because excellence always depends on human ability and creativity - which is always in a limited supply. 

But this may explain why The Boss Baby didn't make more of an impact on release - because it is an excellent movie in almost every way - well scripted, structured, and edited; cleverly witty, very funny, inventive, and heart-warming.

There are some stunning sequences of animation, in various styles and with several themes, right from the very beginning; and these are kept very fresh and various. 

Although I did, as usual, find the inevitable finale of a long chase/ race against the clock to be the least good part of the movie - it had plenty of entertaining or affecting moments; but even the best of this genre (such as Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, The Rise of the Guardians) seem to overdo this aspect of the plot arc - at least, for my taste. 

The Boss Baby even has a rather interesting and hard-hitting premise; which is that babies are not wanted by modern people in the way they used to be - and pets are often preferred (here, it is specifically cute puppies that are the main competition). 

The over-arching moral message is valid and somewhat counter-cultural: based on the life ideal of a loving family; and that having this is better than a successful career. 

In sum: people who like this sort of thing, will find TBB the sort of thing they like. 

Saturday morning music (and clog dancing) - Shane Cook and Emily Flack

I suggest it is impossible not to enjoy this video of a young woman clog dancing in a barn, accompanied by virtuoso fiddle and shoe-taps. 

**

(This is Irish style, 'tho' done by Canadians - for some English clog dancing see this.)

"Will power" characterized the spirituality of the religious elite during the era of Medieval consciousness

Religions, as we know them, emerged in the era of Medieval consciousness  - which was a millennia-long transition between the immersive passive un-consciousness of Original Participation and the current alienated Modern consciousness. 

There were (perhaps) two main forms of religion - one for the masses, the other for elite religious specialists. 

The Medieval mass consciousness was based on obedience to the religious institutions, and spiritual aspects are made possible by intermediary phenomena; such as symbol, ritual, scripture, song - or social dynamics. 

The Medieval elite consciousness was based upon control of the whole person by "will power"; that is by human will aligned with divine will. The basic idea was that a human being might discover the divine will and then organized his life around the process of getting his own will into accord with the divine - and the totality of his behaviour into accord with his own divine-aligned will. 

Since the religious elites led the masses - and the obedience of the masses was directed at the religious elites - it was vital that there was sufficient alignment between elite and divine will. 

Usually - in most places, most of the time - there was not sufficient human-divine alignment - but sometimes and in some places there was; so it remained a valid ideal; especially in a world where individual consciousness was not much developed in most people. 

This idea of subordinating the whole of life to an elite will (purportedly aligned wit the divine) was "a good thing" insofar as the human will really was aligned with the divine will. 

And also insofar as the Medieval mode of consciousness infused this process of deployment of human will with "the spirit". Because otherwise the whole thing was merely legalism - with all the ambiguities and imprecision intrinsic to the interpretation of language

It is this second aspect of the spirit infusing the human will that has changed so much in the modern era - such that the religious elites seldom even claim seriously to to be highly-aligned with divine will. 

Indeed, elite religious authority is usually based upon the same modes as the secular - that is to say institutional legitimacy, laws, rules, guidance understood as normal language, and in practice interpreted in the secular ways that such language is interpreted - e.g. legalistically, by historical and linguistic analysis, quasi-scientifically etc.  

What the modern era is left-with is therefore the forms of Medieval consciousness minus the spontaneous spiritual infusion that accompanied these forms. 

This, I think, is why the Medieval forms are so badly-disenchanted; and exhibit such a dry, monochrome, dull, "school dinners" atmosphere...

And this, in turn, is why so many of the religious elite have turned away from them to immerse in the psychological gratifications - e.g. political spectacle-excitement, media entertainment, self-gratifying pseudo-moralism, therapies and palliatives - of mainstream secular culture. 

This, then, is our situation. The aim, I presume, for each of us is to seek the "enchantment" - i.e. the infusion by divine spirit - that Mankind enjoyed in the past - but accepting that this is not possible either by passive immersion or by mediating phenomena. 

We need to seek the spirit actively and consciously - or else it will not happen. 

And seek to integrate our-selves not by will power - which is now dead. Nor by integration with the unconscious - from which we are detached, and which is anyway not Christian. 

But instead by seeking re-connection with our own partially-divine, eternal, original selves that are currently cut-off and alienated both by modern culture and by the forms of Medieval religion without the spirit. 

Because it is the eternal self that is in direct contact with the divine; and which therefore knows when it is aligned with God - and when it is (usually) more or less in a state of disharmony with creation - i.e. sin.  

For us; will power, and the disciplined seeking of conscious goals that characterized elite religious life in the Medieval era of consciousness; needs to be secondary to seeking divine-motivation and -correction by this inner-directed seeking to recover direct-contact with our eternal selves.