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PATTERNS

From the August 1948 issue of The Christian Science Journal


It was while he was on the mount and the glory of the Lord rested there that Moses received God's instructions for the making of the tabernacle. The admonition to see that all the details were carried out according to the pattern which was shown him in the mount, indicates that Moses was learning that divine inspiration is necessary for the perfection of any pattern.

Pattern is a word very much in vogue today. Besides its significance in the world of art, fashion, science, and textiles, it is now widely used in the fields of psychology and medicine. One hears of patterns of behavior and of reaction, of heredity and of disease.

Psychology, for example, teaches how to classify individuals according to temperament, what patterns of behavior may be expected, and what pattern reactions will take, following given circumstances. Glibly it says that such patterns of behavior are typical. Anyone who feels he has been so classified and is now afraid either that he will not live up to the pattern set for him or that he cannot but conform to some pattern which is wholly unnatural and distasteful to him, will find encouragement in the fact that Christ Jesus never, according to the four Gospels, placed his disciples, his friends, or those who came to him for help in certain human categories and then expected them to remain there with slight variations. Had he done so, he would not have been the Saviour of all men. This does not mean that he ignored evil, but rather that he saw its claim to be personal, present, and powerful as a lie. Because the pattern which he accepted for himself was the same as the one he outlined for his followers, namely (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," he could say, "Ye must be born again;" "Neither do I condemn thee." Only perfection was typical to him.

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