My favorite thing on earth, short of my family, is design. Yes, I'm a graphic artist, but that's not what I'm talking about. There is nothing that isn't design, and that's the sheer beauty in everything.

My mother does landscape design. I did not inherit this trait from her one bit. So it's not uncommon for her to get disgusted with the sad state of my plants on the front porch. I'll come home from work and there will be a beautiful array of new and blooming plants. It's a joy.

This week, she potted an artichoke plant for me. When I walked up, I was stunned by its perfection- tall, thick stalk, long fingered leaves reaching outward, a perfectly rounded artichoke, its petals symmetrically overlapping each other in heart shapes. It is all a pale, silvery green. It looks regal and hopeful. I have enjoyed it so much because of its impeccable design. God's design firm is unquestionably the best.

Everything is like this if you pay attention. Cars. Brick walls. Freeway clovers. Agave plants. Sunsets. Billboards. Butterfly wings. Web sites. Moon craters. Poetry. Films. Book covers. Furniture. Technology. Outer space. Architecture. Humans. Fire. Static. Photography. Journalism. The military. Hands. Music. Silverware. Pottery. Clocks. Boiler rooms. Refining plants. Bubbles. Grass. Paintings. Trees. Rainbows. Rocks. Bookshelves. Magazines. Paintings. Rust. Bolts. Tears.

It is absolutely overwhelming- the perfect simplicity, the underlying complexity, the utilitarianism of all these things. The shapes seem to fit and make order out of chaos. The color just works. Would an elephant be as brilliant if it was orange? Everything is so well thought out in its design. When it comes down to it, everything is Bauhaus.

I sometimes look out into the landscape and wonder what its wire frame looks like. I look at a newspaper, but I never  see it. I see all the people it took to make it. I can almost hear the web running as fast as it can to deliver information in a digestible form. I see artist palettes strewn all over the land, and hands working to paint the sky into sunset, only to tear it all down and start over the next day.

That is why we sleep. So our eyes can find silence.