October 2, 2009
I’ll admit to a secret ego in one arena: An unbridled dedication to seeking adventure. Even, or perhaps especially, in a haystack of domesticity. I can make a case for an Alabama road trip almost as easily as one for a slow boat up the Niger.  Because the point is this:  The destination matters less than our keen willingness to really look and hear and embrace the possibility behind the obvious. In this category, and a few others, Leonard Knight puts me to shame.  Leonard does not dabble as I do – he has full time residence in the very pulp of adventure. We pulled up to Salvation Mountain a little after noon in 114 degree heat, my fellow road tripper told me pointedly.  It took a few minutes of wandering around the silent Technicolor grounds – past the gospel bearing trucks and boats unfit for the sea – before we heard Leonard scamper out. I still don’t know where he came from; In my mind, he was sleeping in the cool tangled branches that support the roof of the second adobe room.  In my mind, he descended like the reverent little bird he is, polite as a tea party and eager to greet his improbable guests. His new best friends. Leonard says he birthed the idea for Salvation Mountain in 1967.  Three decades later, it is a 50 foot tall, 150 foot wide monument to the profound and simple wonder of God’s love – built and expanded daily on US Army grounds.  Leonard says a lot – which I suppose you would if you lived alone in a flat-tired truck in a desert the world gave up on.  Twenty minutes from the equally abandoned Salton Sea, Leonard’s world makes sense.  Of course he is here. Of course he is. The mountain provides the clay, Leonard tells us several times, and he can mold 1,000 flowers with it and discarded tires in an afternoon.  We never got a straight answer on the source of the endless jugs of paint.  The mountain provides, he responded and we thought maybe he was confused – not the adobe, Leonard, we mean the paint. But maybe he knew exactly what we meant. 114 degrees and Leonard kindly took his time – showed me the hundreds of branches and logs he salvaged from the desert and somehow – INEXPLICABLY – hoisted high up in to the rafters of one adobe hut.  The windows he carried back from junked cars and painted with blue birds, framed into scratched sky lights. The desert’s stained glass. It took 24 years of almost entirely solo labor to craft this cathedral and somehow, Leonard is still childlike - somehow he still scampers, unexhausted. We didn’t get to stay long enough, not for my taste.  But I still feel lucky to have wandered around this empire with Leonard for a spell, to have heard his stories of petitioning Congress for Salvation Mountain’s protection.  To have heard him explain his monumental motivation:  To remind people that it’s so much easier than we make it, this issue of faith and God. Before we left, Leonard sat down on a dusty sofa planted in the sand, beneath a wide tattered umbrella and he let me take his photograph.  And I hunched down to him and looked full on at these young eyes, at the ruddy sun worn folds of his cheeks, at his shock of divine white hair.  He smiled, so authentically pleased to have us here, at his church, at his home.  And I’ve got to imagine it was a lot like looking at the very face of God. PS - When I got home, Mills told me about Zach Godshall’s documentary, which captures Leonard in more vibrancy than I could hope to.  Does it surprise anyone that Mills knew of this fantastical story so long before us? The entire Flickr set lives here.

I’ll admit to a secret ego in one arena: An unbridled dedication to seeking adventure. Even, or perhaps especially, in a haystack of domesticity. I can make a case for an Alabama road trip almost as easily as one for a slow boat up the Niger.  Because the point is this:  The destination matters less than our keen willingness to really look and hear and embrace the possibility behind the obvious.

In this category, and a few others, Leonard Knight puts me to shame.  Leonard does not dabble as I do – he has full time residence in the very pulp of adventure.

We pulled up to Salvation Mountain a little after noon in 114 degree heat, my fellow road tripper told me pointedly.  It took a few minutes of wandering around the silent Technicolor grounds – past the gospel bearing trucks and boats unfit for the sea – before we heard Leonard scamper out. I still don’t know where he came from; In my mind, he was sleeping in the cool tangled branches that support the roof of the second adobe room.  In my mind, he descended like the reverent little bird he is, polite as a tea party and eager to greet his improbable guests. His new best friends.

Leonard says he birthed the idea for Salvation Mountain in 1967.  Three decades later, it is a 50 foot tall, 150 foot wide monument to the profound and simple wonder of God’s love – built and expanded daily on US Army grounds.  Leonard says a lot – which I suppose you would if you lived alone in a flat-tired truck in a desert the world gave up on.  Twenty minutes from the equally abandoned Salton Sea, Leonard’s world makes sense.  Of course he is here. Of course he is.

The mountain provides the clay, Leonard tells us several times, and he can mold 1,000 flowers with it and discarded tires in an afternoon.  We never got a straight answer on the source of the endless jugs of paint.  The mountain provides, he responded and we thought maybe he was confused – not the adobe, Leonard, we mean the paint. But maybe he knew exactly what we meant.

114 degrees and Leonard kindly took his time – showed me the hundreds of branches and logs he salvaged from the desert and somehow – INEXPLICABLY – hoisted high up in to the rafters of one adobe hut.  The windows he carried back from junked cars and painted with blue birds, framed into scratched sky lights. The desert’s stained glass. It took 24 years of almost entirely solo labor to craft this cathedral and somehow, Leonard is still childlike - somehow he still scampers, unexhausted.

We didn’t get to stay long enough, not for my taste.  But I still feel lucky to have wandered around this empire with Leonard for a spell, to have heard his stories of petitioning Congress for Salvation Mountain’s protection.  To have heard him explain his monumental motivation:  To remind people that it’s so much easier than we make it, this issue of faith and God.

Before we left, Leonard sat down on a dusty sofa planted in the sand, beneath a wide tattered umbrella and he let me take his photograph.  And I hunched down to him and looked full on at these young eyes, at the ruddy sun worn folds of his cheeks, at his shock of divine white hair.  He smiled, so authentically pleased to have us here, at his church, at his home.  And I’ve got to imagine it was a lot like looking at the very face of God.

PS - When I got home, Mills told me about Zach Godshall’s documentary, which captures Leonard in more vibrancy than I could hope to.  Does it surprise anyone that Mills knew of this fantastical story so long before us?

The entire Flickr set lives here.