A small brass chalice type receptacle. I found it on my mother’s shelf after she had passed away. I brought it home and placed it on my kitchen shelf. After writing a note and leaving it on the kitchen I worried the note might fly off the table. So I placed the small brass chalice on top of the note.
The note reached my son who would arrive home from school before anyone else. The next day I wrote a note when I left for my teaching job, and, again, placed the brass receptacle on the note on the table. In time, like Pavlov’s dog, we all became trained and knew the brass chalice meant a note or a message for someone in the family.
And so we look for patterns in everyday living. If it happens a few times, then it will happen many times and you can expect it to happen perhaps forever. The mailman’s arrival can be a pattern. If he comes at 9:30 A.M for several mornings, it is probable he will come for months, perhaps years at the very same time.
Patterns are our guideposts, the things we look for when we try to make sense of what we are actually observing. And then we say, “Ah, there it is. Now I know what is going to happen next.” And that understanding brings us comfort.
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