What's in a Name?

Why we chose to name our book Patterns for Life

Co-writing a book has its challenges, some of which have the potential to be so catastrophic as to shut down the project entirely. We were fortunate enough in our writing to avoid any serious setbacks, but there was one sticking point that took time to work out in a satisfactory way.

Our monograph encompasses philosophy, anthropology, theology, epistemology, teleology, and parenting (parentology???), to name a few. Entire libraries could be built of the books that have already been written on these subjects, and here we were attempting to bring all of them together in one book.

We had undertaken to write about such a big topic and as we worked away we found ourselves faced with a daunting question: what kind of title could possibly encapsulate the essence of such a project in a few words?

As we continued to write it became clear that the word pattern belonged in our title, and after some back and forth over time we settled on Patterns for Life. (The subtitle took more time still, but that’s a story for another day.)

But why patterns?

Let’s stop a minute and do a good old-fashioned dictionary check: most of the definitions present pattern as a model, a plan; it has a consistent characteristic form. Like sewing a dress from a pattern, the end result is recognizable, but the choices about possible variations are endless.

One beautiful thing about a pattern as a model is that it is meant to be tailored to fit individual circumstances and/or boundaries and limitations. A pattern gives an idea of a form, but the artist working with the pattern knows (or must learn) how to adjust and adapt the pattern in such a way as to have the pattern itself in the position of servant rather than master. It is not meant to be a tyrannical dictator bent on producing cookie-cutter sameness. Pattern as model, plan, or guide honors the universality of particularity. It gives guidance and direction while honoring the inherent uniqueness that manifests as particular hypostases — the unique individual occurrence of every human being in their encounter with the world.

What we both recognized in Charlotte Mason’s work was that this idea of pattern (which she develops in her discussion of the importance of method over systems) is one of the primary underpinnings of her educational philosophy. Her foundational principle – children are born persons – highlights the universal nature that we all share. As persons we and our children necessarily need a specific kind of guidance and direction that harmonizes with the form of our nature. But this guidance and direction is not martially ordered or pragmatically systematic. It’s not a chemistry experiment or even a recipe from a cookbook.

There are, of course, different patterns that people can choose to follow as they live out their lives, and Charlotte Mason’s pattern is not the only one that is valid for educating children. But her perspective is unique in that she thought deeply and carefully about what it is that a person needs in order to live the life of a child of God, and how that should manifest in our guidance of our young ones. That the advice she gives for educating our children proves just as valuable for growing as an adult shows that this pattern is made for everyone.

One of the interesting things about being born persons is that while it means that we are fully human made in the image of God right from the get-go, it also means, by the very nature of personhood itself, we have not yet experienced the fullness of our own personhood. We are born persons made to become Persons in the likeness of the most True Person ever to have lived: our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are born persons, and we are born to live as persons, always and forever growing into the likeness of our Lord.