Nothing Superfluous

Sometimes I wonder what Father God was thinking when He created the different elements, animals and trees, etc. Why did He create the elephant with a long nose, why a giraffe with a long neck? Why is the sky usually blue? Why is snow white? Why are leaves green and the tree trunks brown? Why does rain tree spread its branches whereas the willow hang down and sway? Why do colours of the rainbow add up to become white? Science can tell me all the above but it can hardly explain to me why. Is anything in creation superfluous?

I have learnt in church that nothing in the bible is superfluous, every single word is there for a purpose. When God is the Master Architect for the Tabernacle of Moses, there is no item in the building of the temple that is of no value of significance, every item, every socket, every detail speaks of His great love, expresses a certain symbology. This baffles me a great deal during my training in school to become an architect, and it still does. Perhaps no teacher in school taught me more on the theory of design concept more than the bible!

During my early years in architecture school, I was truly struggling every day, I have no idea what is design concept? All I thought previously was that, so long as one can design something beautiful, isn't that enough? I struggled, because I knew not how to start. I quit, because I realised my inability. I gave up, knowing that I can never design something as beautiful as even a tiny little leaf.

The above was the memory of the past. Recently, a colleague reminded me again, not that he knew of my past, but he brought up something that caused me to ponder a little. He is trained as a landscape architect, and he said everyone can design, can copy from books, can modify what others have produced to become theirs, but there is more to it, there should be more depth, the meaning behind it. Be it the tracing of even as simple as human movement pattern over a patch of grass, to mark the correct circulation path, there is more to design than just simply aesthetic.

I agreed, fully, totally. I enjoyed the process of "agonising" over forming a meaning or a concept for a design these days. I see design as a mean of expressing another depth, and it is not merely to create something beautiful anymore. I follow the route the bible illustrates, for if my Father God design everything with a meaning, for His beloved ones to explore and discover, I would want to follow His methodology, hopefully my design displays a certain level of thoughts and meaning, for people to explore, to enjoy and to ponder, just a little bit will do... just a little dream. Cheers!