Image or Eden? Divine Design.

In response to Jason’s post, let me propose that the decoration of temple grounds is only partly about image, and is mostly about Eden. As breathtaking as the lights are at Christmas time, my favorite season is Temple Square in bloom, which actually lasts longer and is also easy to find on Flickr. It’s about showing the beauty of Life, Creation, and Renewal that are such central themes of the temple. In other words – it’s not just a PR image, it’s an illustration of what the temple is all about, beautiful form fitting beautiful function – what good design IS.

I’ve thought a lot about this because a good friend of mine who happens to be of another faith made some comments a while ago about how much money was spent on the gardens on Temple Square. I respectfully submit that it’s not about money or even image – it’s about projecting the spirit of what goes on inside the temple to the outside.

J.R.R. Tolkien talked a lot in his non-fiction works and letters about “sub-creation” – that it is part of our nature (even our duty) as children of God to want to create beautiful things, not on God’s scale and not from scratch, but to work with the materials he’s provided to make nice things.

Good Design is Divine – would make a nice T-shirt, don’t you think?

posted by Ted Boren on Friday, Sep 22, 2006
tagged with design, temple, gardens, creation