My Pattern Breakthrough

After my last post on pattern languages, I felt I had the missing piece: patterns are problem-solution vehicles. They are not merely answers. But little did I know how prescient this would prove. I took my deck of patterns to lunch and began to randomly spread them out on the table: TIME, WIDOWS AND ORPHANS, BREAD, TEMPLE and so on. Suddenly, the questions behind these answers began screaming out at me. It was as if I could finally hear. They were always there, but I hadn't considered them. When I created the cards, I was regurgitating concepts with little thought as to why they exist in the first place. Now, the questions revealed themselves. TEMPLE, I read. This answers questions about God's presence with his people and the world. CHAOS AND DISORDER. This is about identifying the problem itself--why things are what they are and what God is overcoming. WISDOM. This answers how we know what to do in the world and how to recognize God's way versus other ways. One by one, as I picked up cards at random, I could easily see the questions behind the answers I'd written down. And then, something more came into view.

I saw real taxonomic order within the questions and their pattern-answers. Let me explain. CREATION. This is about the origin of the world, why it exists and what sort of moral entity it is. Other pattern cards such as HISTORY or the IMAGO DEI or WORK fall naturally under CREATION as they are more narrow in terms of taxonomic categories involved, more influenced rathern than influencers, and have a finer specificity of application. The same kind of relationship exists on the question side. WORK, for example, asks an ethical question about what it is proper to do. The question of what we should do exists within the larger question of where we come from. But, say, one asks about euthanasia. There is no card for this. The pattern language is not meant to be defined by cards. The cards are meant to create a framework of address. Anyway, euthanasia and whether it is morally right to kill yourself or another certainly is a narrower question than the question of why do we die, which is itself a subset of the question why we exist at all.

The taxonomic order extended into the type of cards I had written. Besides obvious patterns like THE SWORD or KENOSIS were cards that aren't patterns but buckets that organize patterns: The last things, Jesus of Nazareth, the missio Dei. These are the classic categories of the craft and creeds. They are probably answers to questions themselves, yes, but they are different too. They are category cards, such as the ones in Group Work's deck, and they answered a nagging question for me about exactly how the categories might fit in a pattern language without making it uniform. I see now there's little danger of that.

A pattern language as I understand it now is highly individual. Even if two were constructed by brothers of the same mind, I think their resemblance, though present, would still differ such as with franternal twins. The patterns that express the language are unique, and how they are grouped together is unique. Using Gadamer's term: what is expressed and how it is expressed is governed by prejudice. Not only, but how it is used to categorize and address questions is unique. As in real life, one man talks constantly of God's simplicity and another of the church and its sacraments. My initial insight was correct: the use of a theological pattern language could allow one to map (and interrogate) their own system and to do the same with the systems of others.

A final thought: like any language, a pattern language has three audiences. In this case, the question, the answer, and the reader or user of the pattern language who is thinking along with it. All three must ultimately be taken into account to make a living language.

Pattern Theory Upgrades

A search on this blog will suggest I have a sweet tooth for Christopher Alexander's pattern language approach to democratizing bodies of expertise. Alexander's initial insights have grown over time as they have been taking up by many different fields: architecture, computer science, education, and social sciences. Now I read architect Hajo Neis's article "From a Pattern Language to a Field of Centers and Beyond" and discover terms like overall pattern language approach and pattern theory and practice. The conversation out there is maturing, and Neis's article has a few upgrades to suggest. What follows is a list of upgrades.

Pattern Development has an Ethical Telos. The discipline has clarified Alexander's "quality without a name" so that it now talks about quality of life. Neis calls it "the improvement of life, human development and improvement of the environment in which we live." This means that pattern theory understands what it is doing as an ethical act and has gone so far as to recommend the ethical principle that should be followed. As I consider how to do a theology pattern language, this asks what my ethical principle is.

Patterns Exist for Solutions. Neis expands on the term pattern and calls it a problem-solution pattern, and he is clear that solving problems is the point. "A pattern is . . . a rule which addresses a clear problem which may occur repeatedly in the environment, states the range of contexts in which this problem will occur, and gives the general features required [to] solve this problem." A pattern is like a hypothesis which is stated with evidence pro or con. It is a system based primarily on functional considerations. The principle of patterns lays out of way of tackling problems that invite dialog. Patterns are formulated as archetypal, general solutions that can find endless forms of specific solutions and applications according to context and interpretation." Patterns should be as clear as possible in order to promote understanding and invite dialog. In this sense, they are a way of scientifically encoding a discipline--I keep thinking of the dialogic system of Thomas Aquinas's great summas.

Connections make a language. Nais confirms what I expected. The language part of a pattern language emerges as patterns are connected to general and to specific patterns around them. A pattern begins by listing off related patterns at a higher level from it, and it ends by listing patterns at a lower level. This democratizes expertise and "provides users an organized procedure to help make sense out of otherwise complex situations." Patterns provide shared grammar. Patterns require user participation to make value; words are made for speaking.

Languages are General and Specific. Nais also confirms how pattern languages are used and how they are contextualized! "An architect . . . select[s] a set of patterns and use[s] these solution-patterns as archetypal starting points for a design and building process." Planners, he continues, will choose out a set of patterns appropriate to their need, and then--here is the innovation--they will create new patterns required for that particular project. The original pattern language Nais calls the General Pattern Language. Such pattners are a archetypal solutions. They are not contextual. The new, customized set of patterns are contextual. Neis calls these the Project Pattern Language. "Each project is different and unique in its own way and therefore needs its own Project Pattern Language as an important aspect of innovation, originality, and creativity within the larger complex system of functionality and harmony. . . . a Project Pattern Language may contain quite a few patterns in their solution or hypothesis form."

Patterns are just part of the thinking process. A pattern language (general or project) sits in a continuum of thinking that may begin in ideas, dreams, poems, and any kind of creativity. "In a project language, patterns are not the only defining elements any more, but all kinds of specific ideas, dreams, visions, may make up a coherent language for a particular project. Narratives, stories and poems could serve as starting points for a project and can serve as starting points of innovation, improvisation and creativity. . . . pattern languages do not replace design, but they are part of the design process."

Anti-patterns: the what not to do. These are proposed solutions that create more problems than they solve and therefore should be avoided. Such bad solutions are called anti-patterns. Neis doesn't go into it, but introducing a no creates a new subtlety to the overall language.

Final thoughts: Combining these insights with other posts I've accumulated on pattern writing, I understand now that simply saying a theological thing like bread, covenant, Son, or water is not making a pattern. Even thought these words may represent a nexus of theological meaning, they don't clearly solve anything. They need to be reworked with the user in mind in order to be made useful for them. Those nodes may often represent the solution to a problem, but saying the bare thing doesn't clearly help the user.

By understanding the problem-solution nature of patterns, I see now that the quality without a name that governs my system must exist on the vertical and horizontal planes simultaneously. In an earlier post, I said worship would be the telos of my system. But this is only the vertical. Recalling the service a pattern should be to a user, the telos must be to guide the user into greater degrees of worship of the triune God.

Patterns are like garden tomatoes. They are like curry, like garlic

One of my favorite shows ever is Netflix's documentary series Chef's Table. I love watching shows about people who love something and tell you why. But the cinematography, the settings, the personalities, the food, and the deep humanity of cooking finds in this show a new high. Yes, it can get repetitive. There is a common direction between farm and consumption. But there is one thing that gets me every time, and that is the loving attention of each chef to ingredients. Perhaps it is salt or pork or almonds--featured chefs have gone through a process of understanding and valuing each ingredient. I love that. I'm fascinated by what happens when human beings give over their deepest attention. I love ἡσυχίᾳ.

So, I was thinking about this today in relationship to theology. In the discipline of theology, there is a lot to know. There is a reason why the old universities saved theology for last. That's what it requires. Theologians have to be historians, literature professors, quasi-scientists, philosophers, psychologists, ethicists, Biblical scholars, linguists, economists, political scientists, researchers, teachers, writers (and sometimes public speakers), and keep up with their fellow theologians all at the same time. Theology needs it all, and there is never enough. It is necessary to dive down many times and to stay down as long as possible. In theology, the Baptists finally get their wish and the submerged must be saturated through-and-through. It is necessary--along with the comorbid guilt and frustration. Nevertheless, there is a time to put it aside. That is what I am feeling.

What I want to do is follow those chefs back into the ingredients. I want to pluck a blueberry from a bush or pull a carrot from my own earth. And I have been noodling around with Christopher Alexander's pattern language ideas, his and others, because I think this is the way to do this. That is the way to pull the ingredients up out of the crazy kitchen of tradition and argument and give each one my deepest attention. I want to get to know them, be schooled by them, let them pull me into the conversation they are having, into the tradition, and not the other way round. I do not want to use them; I want to spend time with them, to love them. It is part of the working out of the transition from the practice of theology as a profession in the academy to the practice of theology as craft. It is part of ad fontes.

For a while, I have been struggling to understand how to build a pattern language. I've not been sure exactly what constitutes a pattern. Is a pattern the solution to a problem or is a pattern a theme or idea? Are the themes and ideas that make up a discipline in reality solutions to problems that come up in the practice of that discipline (in which case they trace how that discipline is practiced)? I have not been sure. And this hesitancy around what is and is not a pattern has slowed me down. But I am starting to overcome the either/or and say the ideas of a discipline are also its solutions to underlying problems. Patterns are like tomatoes, curry, and garlic, and they are solutions to necessary problems (Acts 10:13).

----------

Epilogue: It occurs to me this evening that I still act as beholden to the academy when there is no reason to be. I do not need its permission. There is no need to beg a tenure committee. There is no need to hock my wares, desperate in a frayed suit at the yearly AAR paid for by money scraped from months of the family food budget. There is a discipline to well-formed scholarship that should be obeyed. Discipline is important, yes. So, giving a respectful nod, I feel free now to follow my muse (cf. Purgatorio I.1-84).

----------

"Emmanuel Mounier describes the notion of environment poetically. The environment is not everything that surrounds us. It is only that which may become our experience and possesses the power of incarnation.

“Precisely that winding road transforming proximity into incarnation turns the whole human environment, from bodily fluids and blood to the starry heavens above our heads, into the living body of our life. Anything that has not been experienced this way has not yet become a human environment.”

"So things, stars, people must become my body in order to exist for me.

The same holds for poetry."

~ Anna Kamienska from In that Great River: A Notebook

Exploring pattern relationships: Community and Election

To move forward, my pattern language needs relationships. Where patterns are indexed to other patterns, meaning can be made. Apart from connection, what can be done? Below are my first two examples. One is built from *Community and the other from *Election.

Couple of comments: (a) Making relationships reveals holes. The *Election diagram is missing *Grace, for example. (b) Laying cards out like this begs some kind of method that identifies which idea is the spoke, which are antonyms or synonyms, which are higher-level or lower-level relationships, etc. (c) I don't think I understand what a pattern really is.

What is a pattern? Is it a recurring move or strategy or theme? For example, is *God the Father a pattern? What about *Water? What about *Christology?

And how many patterns is too many? Does a language need to be small enough to hold it all in one's mind, or, because patterns are indexed, can it be much larger? Does a large number of patterns suggest sloppy repetitiveness? Is too few not useful?

Finally, I have two ideas about an overall schema or index. I keep thinking about the divine economy and the Trinity and such. I keep thinking about the threefold liturgical confession: "Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again!"

I keep thinking about theological moves and movements. And so I have been toying with the following dramatic scheme:

• creation/introduction/recognition
• identification/empathy
• kenotic service
• gracious restoration
• glorious presentation.

But, then again, maybe the classic divisions such as Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, etc. are just as good.

Notes on pattern making: June 22, 2017

• “No pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world, only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns within which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it. This is a fundamental view of the world.” ~ Christopher Alexander
• "Are you paying attention to Alexander’s more recent view that the use of patterns indiscriminately was a bit haphazard. He developed a process for how patterns should unfold in time – a process of structure-preserving transformation. That’s in the four volume The Nature of Order (especially vol 2)." ~ comment by fourcultures
• "Part of what I like about this pattern language is that it includes organizations and resources for each pattern, raising the possibility that a pattern language could be used as an organizing tool (where do I fit? who do I depend on and need to collaborate with? who depends on me?) or as a guide for curriculum development (a student would major in a pattern; but understand well the patterns connected to their specialty plus the “whole” modeled by the pattern language)." ~ comment by Tom Atlee
• "I think of a pattern as 'a design element'—-something we need to attend to when consciously creating a healthy whole (of whatever the pattern language is about). Another way I think about it is as a 'need' of a healthy system. A major test of a pattern is whether we can manifest it in many ways." ~ Ibid.
• "The [Liberating Voices (MIT Press, 2008)] pattern language begins with the most general patterns (“Theory”) and proceeds to the most specific (“Tactics”). Each pattern is a template for research as well as action and is linked to other patterns, thus forming a single coherent whole." ~ from the marketing blurb
• "A lot of the papers that are labeled a pattern language are not. For example, Coplien's process patterns are true, valuable, and important. But they are not a pattern language. There are too many holes. A pattern language has to be complete in some sense. There are various States of a pattern, starting from fledgling or proto-pattern and going up all the way to be part of a pattern society or group of collaborating patterns within a pattern language." ~ Ali Arsanjani
• "A pattern has defined fields, including Context, Problem, Forces, and Solution. A pattern is used in a certain design Context, and considers a recurring design Problem in this context. It focuses on the Forces which confront the designer, before describing a Solution--a proposed approach to the situation which resolves the tensions among forces." ~ M. Mahemoff
• "The expertise is in the language." ~ CA
• We extract meaning from chaos by spotting patterns. It is the signal in the noise.

Here is a "how to do it" series of instructions about creating pattern languages by a guy named Ward Cunningham:

1) Pick a whole area, not just one idea. I like subject matter that is practical but seldom explored in a text book. You know, the kind of stuff you have to learn from your colleagues on the job. The discussion on the "patterns" list got me thinking about checking data.

2) Make a list of all the little things you have learned through the years about the area. Imagine that your kid brother has just taken responsibility for this area on his first big job. You're getting together this weekend. What are you going to tell him. Make a list.

3) Cast each item on your list as a solution. I like to write a sentence with "therefore" in the middle. You will have to think a little deeper here to figure out the forces that bear on your solutions. It's ok to speculate. I find this to be a rewarding activity since I often find new reason for what I do.

4a) Now write each item as a Pattern. I've come to favor a four paragraph form where the second paragraph ends with the pivotal "therefore:". This is a good time to flip through Alexander's Pattern Language. I feel my work has always improved when I more closely mimic his style. I'm just now learning to make the first and last paragraphs carry weight. These are the ones that link a pattern with others in the language.

4b) Organize your patterns into sections. Write a little introduction to each section that lists each pattern by name. You may find you need to adjust your linking paragraphs as you study the higher level structure of your patterns. Try to keep 4a and 4b fluid as you write. As you become more familiar with your patterns you may find that they organize themselves.

5) Now write an introduction to your pattern language that hints at the forces you will be addressing.

The Public Sphere Project is using the web to annotate each of the 136 patterns that make up their Liberating Voices project.

The already existing division of theology into academic, systematic, biblical, and practical theology (maybe even including mystical theology) may be the discovery of a vertically organizing framework in existence in the discipline itself.

Oyvind Holmstad blogging on pattern languages offers this helpful way of making patterns:

Identifying any type of pattern follows the same criteria in architecture as in hardware or software.

1. A repeating solution to the same or similar set of problems, discovered by independent researchers and users at different times.

2. More or less universal solution across distinct topical applications, rather than being heavily dependent upon local and specific conditions.

3. That makes a pattern a simple general statement that addresses only one of many aspects of a complex system. Part of the pattern methodology is to isolate factors of complex situations so as to solve each one in an independent manner if possible.

4. A pattern may be discovered or "mined" by "excavating" successful practices developed by trial-and-error already in use, but which are not consciously treated as a pattern by those who use it. A successful pattern is already in use somewhere, perhaps not everywhere, but it does not represent a utopian or untried situation. Nor does it represent someone’s opinion of what "should" occur.

5. A pattern must have a higher level of abstraction that makes it useful on a more general level, otherwise we are overwhelmed with solutions that are too specific, and thus useless for any other situation. A pattern will have an essential area of vagueness that guarantees its universality. – Nikos A. Salingaros

Here's a gnarl of quotations from CA: "The patterns are patterns of action, and the action will not happen unless the patterns are felt, and created, and maintained by the people whose action goes into the patterns . . . patterns operate upon the whole : they are not parts, which can be added – but relationships, which get imposed upon the previous ones, in order to make more detail, more structure, and more substance – so the substance of the building emerges gradually . . the whole emerges. You are able to do this only when you no longer fear that nothing will happen, and you can therefore afford to let go of your images. because the gaps get filled, the small things that are wrong and gradually corrected, and finally, the whole is so smooth and relaxed, that it will seem as though it had been forever. It has no roughness about it, it simply lies there stretched out in time. Architects sometimes say that in order to design a building, you must have “an image” to start with, so as to give coherence and order to the whole. But you can never create a natural thing in this state of mind. If you have an idea – and try to add the patterns to it, the idea controls, distorts, makes artificial, the work which the patterns themselves are trying to do in your mind. Instead you must start with nothing in your mind. You are able to do this only when you no longer fear that nothing will happen, and you can therefore afford to let go of your images. ~ CA assorted quotations.

A pattern language is composed by a number of elements called patterns. Each pattern is written in a certain format. Although there are several types of format, it definitely contains name of the pattern, problem and its solution, and it may also contain context to apply the pattern, force as a premise that cause the problem, and related patterns. Such patterns are often organized into a catalogue. ~ Takashi Iba

Patterns identify a problem and suggest a core solution. Each pattern is connected to a larger and a smaller pattern.

"Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem in such a way that you can use that solution a million times over without ever doing it the same way twice." (CA)

"A design pattern systematically names, motivates, and explains a general design that addresses a recurring design problem in object-oriented systems. It describes the problem, the solution, when to apply the solution, and its consequences. It also gives implementation hints and examples. The solution is a general arrangement of objects and classes that solve the problem. The solution is customized and implemented to solve the problem in a particular context." (DesignPatterns Book)

At the heart of every pattern is a design problem.

Patterns must have the property of emergence, meaning that a pattern must suggest or infer its embedded system.

"The structures of a pattern are not themselves solutions, but they generate solutions. Patterns that work this way are called generative patterns. A generative pattern is a means of letting the problem resolve itself over time. . . . A pattern language not only tells us the rules for arrangement but shows us how to construct arrangements--as many as we want--which satisfy the rules." ~ CA

A query to a pattern language listerv yielded the following from a man named Peter K.

My question was, "How does one use pattern languages?" Peter's response defines as much as answers. But he does, still, add a bit to my understanding of how to use the medium. He writes,

----------

A pattern language collects and presents a body of wisdom from a community of practice in small, friendly pieces that are directly and easily applied to a given situation. The pieces are joined in a number of ways for easy navigation and browsing between the pieces, and to make it easier to comprehend the body of knowledge as a whole. The pieces are friendly and beautiful so they are soothing, enjoyable, and engaging for people to peruse.

(I purposely borrowed "small pieces" and "joined" from David Weinberger's pattern name, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined," which he uses for the Internet itself.)

It is similar to a cookbook, although more interconnected.

It has similarities to an encyclopedia, but favors practice and application rather than minute and comprehensive detail.

It has similarities to a fake book in music, but transmits more theme and application (knowledge and wisdom) rather than melody and rhythm (data).

It has similarities to the Talmud, but pattern languages are (or have been, at least) constructed as a smaller, constrained whole at a point in time, rather than accretively over centuries or millennia.

Pattern languages are particularly good for transmitting knowledge and wisdom of practitioners within and between communities of practice. They are good for individual or group reflection, inspiration, and application to immediate implementation.

Conversely, pattern languages are not a narrative; they do not tell a story of the application of the patterns.

(Stories -- narratives -- are the primary way people exchange plans and experiences.)

Nor are pattern languages meant to contain all of the context a student of a practice would need to learn the craft. A pattern language is a reference for practitioners or practitioners-to-be; it is not a learning guide for students.

(Practice is best learned by doing, under mentorship of an experienced practitioner, anyway.)

Notes on pattern-making: June 21, 2017

I've been continuing to read and learn what I can about pattern languages. My questions are: How do I identify a pattern? What is the difference between a taxonomy and a language? How many patterns are too many? What do I want to do with this thing?

Luck for me, some research on these very questions exists on the web for anyone willing to do the reading and to tolerate the jargon of other disciplines. What follows is a disorderly brain dump of notes that I have taken so far.

----------

"While individual patterns are useful on their own, they are more powerful when three are used in combination."

To start the process, an initial design problem is chosen and the designer applies one or more related patterns to solve the problem. The process continues as the designer considers additional problems that arise from the requirements and constraints of the project. Additional patterns are applied until the designer is satisfied that all design problems have been adequately addressed through the application of patterns. Alexander's descriptive framework for outlining a pattern included a pattern name, a statement of the problem underlying the pattern, the context in which the problem occurs, one or more solutions to the problem, and any related information that might aid others in connecting the pattern with other related patterns.

as new patterns were generated, previously written patterns were revised in order to clarify any new relationships that were discovered to exist between the patterns.

patterns are considered mature as they explain their topic and suggest ways of encouraging the quality without a name to a greater degree.

The mere fact that Alexander used the descriptive phrase “the quality without a name” to name the quality he wished to describe is somewhat ironic, and this may confuse some readers. After all, if it does not have a name, can it really exist? However, readers should understand that Alexander used that phrase in part to emphasize the precise nature of the phenomenon and remind the reader that when they experience this quality they may have difficulty communicating the entire experience through individual words. Nevertheless, even though it may be difficult to describe this quality and to understand it intellectually, it should be remembered that Alexander claimed this quality is real and that it can be readily identified by asking the simple question of whether or not the artifact, event, or experience feels good.

----------

The emphasis that practitioners have placed on Alexander's "quality without a name" has been a surprise. Alexander used this quality as a telos or target by which to judge the fitness of his entire project. And others have done the same after taking time to describe what this quality may be in their discipline. Their attention to this detail makes me ask whether I also shouldn't describe a quality for my own project.

My instincts gestures toward a kind of religious depth. Perhaps this is akin to what Schleiermacher meant by a "feeling of absolute dependence." This is the kind of thing William James is getting at in his famous lectures, or that his peers, the Transcendentalists, meant by the Oversoul. This is the sort of company that yanks me to a stop. Awe toward a transcendental mood is a false positive. So, I think that I will go a different route and call it "worship." The "quality without a name" my pattern language is aiming at is demarcated at this point by the word worship.

Moving on, I wonder if orthodoxy is a descriptor that means that certain patterns are present (or absent) in a matrix? And I wonder if the Trinity works as a kind of meta pattern or organizing principles that acts as a heuristic to the whole. In other words, if your pattern organizes itself according to a trinitarian heuristic, then you are working within the bounds of orthodoxy.

Asking after the transition from bare taxonomy to pattern language, the turned corner of difference seems to be organization along x, y axes. The x are related cards. The y is meta-relationships, both up into the abstract and down into the particular. I picture at least two levels and perhaps three. And so, I have to ask what my abstract index layer will look like. How complex will it be? How complex must it be to cover the field? And what qualifies a topic to exist at this level? Is this a simple matter of writing Father, Son, and Spirit on three cards and going for it? Or, will these meta principles be much more abstract, such as "being poured out"?

Finally, the question of what to do with this tool is slowly answering itself as work progresses. Here are three applications that I've been thinking of:

• opening doors. A theological pattern language will help an individual or group think theologically. So, say a Sunday School group is reading about the baptism of Jesus and the teacher, before the class discusses the passage, lays out the following pre-chosen cards creation, mission, and chaos. I can see the members of that group using those cards to more easily enter into a theological discussion of that text at a level that is deeper than where they may have gone during the course of a normal morning.
• mapping systems. I could see a student reading the first chapter of Augustine's Confessions and using the cards to map out topics as Augustine discusses them. Moreover, by laying out the cards in a tree or a circle or some other relationship and by using the meta-levels encoded into the cards themselves, the reader makes a map of Augustine's treatment. He or she might begin to play around with the organization, asking which are more or less important. And also, by looking at the relationships written on the cards, the reader might discover the third use that I could see this tool providing, namely
• outlining what's missing. Thanks to the relationships encoded in the language itself, the cards could be used to highlight what is missing in a work that is being read or in one's own thinking. Thus, the language serves to aid and broaden one's own theological thinking.

The degree to which especially the last two aids will work depends largely on how an infinite number of cards may be properly reduced to a fit number of patterns, not ideas. I suppose, if the cards were indexed to their own web pages, as group works has done, any amount of information could be associated with a card. One could, for example, make a list of the theologians who best address a particular pattern and where they do so.

Finally, I need to remember that patterns are responses to problems, where a problem is a common problem in a field. To describe a problem is to describe when a particular pattern is applied. Consider listing potential solutions as well.

"The purpose of a pattern language is to change people's habits or help them form new habits, to generate patterns of habits of actions for certain situations.." says Takashi Iba. "We must mine habits that create desirable results and write them as patterns that describe what action is good for a certain situation. Alexander points out that a person who performs an act of design does not think from scratch, but instead uses various rules of thumb that they have gained from experience."

First steps toward a theological pattern language

I sat down this afternoon with a deck of 3x5" cards and began writing a topic on each one. I didn't have a method of any sort. I wrote down themes that seemed ubiquitous and necessary. The work went faster than expected. After an hour, my table was covered with over a hundred cards. So what now?

To be honest, I have no idea what I am doing. Once every concept is written down that I can come up with, once I have two or three hundred cards in my hand, what then? How can I take a subjective list of topics and move them toward being a pattern language of their own? And how do I know what this would be? What is the use of something like this? Why am I doing this?

There are two clues on the group work's website that may help. One of these is an activity, and one comes from the orientation guide included in their kit. The activity is called the "pattern grab exercise." Here's how it works:

Setup

Option 1: Lay out all the cards in a spiral or other pattern on a table where they are readable by the whole group.

Option 2: Select a subset of cards to work with and lay these out. You could use a method like "Strengths / Growing Edges Circle" to make the selection

Instructions

1) Have a participant describe an upcoming agenda item / event which they are facilitating, including the history and context of the item / event, and the goals.

1A) As the participant describes the item / event, the rest of the group picks up cards that they feel are important to consider in the design of the process for the item / event

2) Popcorn-style, participants read out a card they selected, describe how they feel it relates, and the group briefly discusses ways that this could be worked into the process design.

This can be done in-depth for as few as one items, or more rapidly for many, depending on whether the goal is process design or training. The cards are laid in a circle

Here is the other clue from their orientation guide. The cards in their deck are divided into nine meta-categories. And those categories can be used to structure the use of the deck itself. And I'm thinking, "How different is this from the way we use the creeds to structure theological thinking?"

So what am I after? Here is my thinking. I am not a professional theologian, and I will never be a professional theologian. And yet I cannot seem to leave it behind. So I've had to peel away the habits of thinking that go along with academic theology. And I have had to ask how theology can fit in my hand. And the models I keep coming to are art and cooking--not argument.

There is another barrier too: my brain. I do not remember details or recall details very well. My brain works in larger patterns and relationships. It works in shapes. And, though I work very hard, it does not run as fast as those of my friends who fit in the academy. I have ADD. Maybe that is it. Whatever the case, for me to do theology, it has to fit my brain as well as my hand. And this means a slower approach, or at least a different one.

And then, about two years ago, I learned about Christopher Alexander and pattern languages. Patterns that work together to create a way of talking about and passing on the fundamentals of a discipline. Patterns that can be used like a chef uses ingredients to plate a meal or an artist uses colors to make a painting. Can this work with theology? Can this tool allow me to use the emotional kaleidoscope in my head to do things with my years of theological training? I certainly hope so.

And so I made one card after the next. Again, I'm not sure where to go from here. But I'm willing to work into the tool, to let the tool and I become comfortable together. It took Alexander seven years to write his book. It took group works two to write their deck. It may take a while. But I am eager to see how it comes out.

----------

For further thought, here is a link to group work's beginner's orientation. There are excellent ideas here about how to begin to structure and use even a pattern language that is in process.

Identifying patterns and pattern languages

I have a growing interest in something called pattern languages. Begun in architecture through the work of architect Christopher Alexander and his book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, pattern languages were quickly taken up by software programmers and mathematicians. These kept the idea alive until it gradually seeped into other disciplines.

An excellent example of this is Group Works and their GroupWorks deck, a deck of cards--patterns--that are used in facilitating meetings and social gatherings.

Group Works has a definition of what makes a pattern that I quite like, and I have lifted it wholesale from their website. They call it the Hallmarks List, and it is as follows:

----------

The following list of questions are here to help guide the pattern writing and editing process. While it’s not required that every pattern necessarily be able to answer yes to every question on this list, these are hallmarks that have been noted across many of the patterns.

Does it further the goals of the project?

• Support purpose-driven design
• Deepen the skills of those who serve as group process guides
• Serve as a resource for those who are teaching others
• Increase process literacy among people who are users of process(es)

Does it point us toward “the quality that has no name”? Does it describe a feature that shows up repeatedly in group processes (link is external) that result in “deepening, connection, and a fulfillment of purpose”?

Does it feel resonant? Is it evocative? Does my gut respond to this with a sense of recognition?

Does it happen across methods/approaches? Is it a common piece underlying multiple methodologies? This is like stacking functions in permaculture, where one element contributes to many yields.

Can it take a large variety of forms? "Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice."--A Pattern Language

Is it fractal? That is, does it show up at more than one scale (such as within one item of a meeting and again within the meeting as a whole)?

Is it a distinct creature? That is, once grasped, it stands out as its own thing, coherent, and not merely a result of other aspects of process. While it may take a while to first “see” a pattern, its essential “shape” should be easy to recall once understood. Is it unifying? It may bring together what previously seemed like separate aspects of group process.

Does it describe an action that can be consciously undertaken by convenors and/or participants? Rather than, for instance, a dynamic to be passively observed. Does knowledge of this pattern increase the skill of practitioners?

----------

For more information

Reading and Websites

Nikos A. Salingaros. The Structure of Pattern Languages. Architectural Research Quarterly volume 4 (2000) pages 149-161.

group works. What is a pattern language?

Christopher Alexander's website.

Ola Möller. Pattern languages and Generative Codes. MethodKit.com.

Design Matrix. Anatomy of a Pattern Language.

Dan Greening. How to Read and Write Pattern Languages.

Werner Ulrich. A review of The Art of Observation: Understanding Pattern Languages. (Journal of Research Practice Volume 2, Issue 1, Article R1, 2006).

Michael Mahemoff* & Lorraine J. Johnston. "Usability Pattern Languages: the "Language" Aspect"

Michael T. Patterns Are Not Building Blocks.

Takashi Iba. “The Future of Pattern Language: Soft Social Infrastructure to Allow Freedom of Creation in the Creative Society” Slideshare. Published Oct 27, 2018.

YouTube Videos

"Spaces for the Soul:A documentary about the Architect, Mathematician Christopher Alexander" https://youtu.be/nWSDT2wdth4

John Athayd. "The Timeless Way of Building" (lecture w slides) https://youtu.be/3AltRFXviK4

Takashi Iba. "Pattern Language 3.0, vol.1: Introduction" https://youtu.be/oOigtdwvpvM

Peter Bane. Presenting on pattern languages at the North American Permaculture Convergence 2014: https://youtu.be/SSnmEEnjbmY

Claudina Sarahe. "Deconstructing Web Systems; or, a Pattern Language for Web Development." https://youtu.be/RXuB3Ti368o

Phaedra Taylor, "Open and Unafraid Prayer Cards." For sale by the Rabbit Room, these fifteen, full-color, 4x6 laminated cards are designed to "provide help to individuals, families, small groups and communities who wish to pray in light of the Book of Psalms." It isn't technically a pattern language, as there is no index, but the similarity is unmistakable. I am most interested in the suggestions for how the cards might be used. The cards serve as a heuristic device, setting boundaries that elevate and govern in this case the activity of prayer.

Group Work's Instructions for Pattern Writing.

The Ministry of Testing's TestSphere pattern language about test engineering.

doing theology as one might keep a scrapbook

Going through some old files tonight, I came across this personal note from early December, 2001. Reading it now, it seems like good grist for the mill (meaning, good for blogging.)

This morning, while reading the preface to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, I hit upon the idea for a new form of communicating theology. This form employs a style analogous to Wittgenstein's remarks, in that it is composed of short paragraphs. These follow one another in a long chain clustered around the same subject. The chain can also be broken by a sudden leap from one topic to another.

My intuition says that this form would respect the apophatic nature of Christian spirituality. It would suggest that Christianity is not simply a religion of texts but also of prayer, which exists outside definition. Its patron saint is the German mystic and priest [name illegible], and the various form of table talk popular since Luther. A helpful metaphor is also a scrapbook. When viewing a scrapbook, there is a sense of story, of movement, of life, but there are no pretentions about capturing the entire dimensionality of that life itself. Rather, the life is attested to by photographs. People sharing the experience of viewing the scrapbook together tell stories and reminisce, making connections between people and events in the past and present. Indeed, the best photos draw these connections from the viewer. Like loosely formed poetic images, imposed and creative meanings are welcome. The hope is that by stimulating dialogue, the remarks become a vehicle for theological impulses. They are midwives for theological contemplation.

I wonder if even the construction of these remarks is not done in a different way than is university theology today. University theology is thesis, body, conclusion held together by argument and adorned with bibliography and footnote.

This style, avoiding such ornaments, would be minimalist. The writer wants to only provide enough--and no more--to evoke and stimulate the reader. Footnotes and citations are too intrustive. They restrict interpretive power to the past.

This is not to say that this form is the only method for theology. For most types of theological argumentation, it doesn't work--but it may work for some.

I propose a system of doctrinal remarks stretching to no more than thirty pages.

[This proposal reminds me very much of remarks made in my post on Emile Cioran's use of aphorism.]