Two
years ago I had an idea. It wasn’t
necessarily a very good idea, but for some reason this particular thought of
mine wouldn’t seem to go away. I can’t
recall what specifically triggered it or from where it came, maybe it was some
photographs I had seen, maybe it was a quote from a movie, maybe it was some
reading I had done, but nevertheless I decided that it would be a good idea to
go visit Salvation Mountain. I think
it’s important to note that I have approximately a thousand of these types of
thoughts a day, so to have something be so inexplicably persistent does bear
some significance. I believe God often works
through the strange desires of our hearts, I believe he nests in each of us a
very individual set of things that serve as beacons to find him. In my life,
the times I most readily find God are those when I’ve taken the time to listen (and
more importantly to act) and trust that the simple and strange things of my
heart are good.
Now
Salvation Mountain isn’t necessarily an ordinary tourist destination, in fact
every time I’ve mentioned it to friends over the past months I’ve had to try to
explain what it is. I’ve heard Salvation
Mountain described as everything from an art fixture to a shrine, and while on
the surface those classifications seem fitting, I guess I’ve come to learn that
it might be something more. In its
simplest form Salvation Mountain is nothing more than painted adobe and other
assorted debris arranged with care in the middle of the desert. In honesty, I expected nothing more, however,
in the aftermath of my visit I have come to see the profound way that a simple
man used the things that this world has discarded and transformed them into a
testament of his love.
As a brief
history, Leonard Knight started a project outside of Niland, CA back in the
Early 80’s transforming a small chunk of the dessert into a painted monument to
God’s love. Knight, born in 1931 as the
fourth of six children in Burlington Vermont certainly had his fair share of
life before he moved to Niland. Drafted
at the age of 20 he served in the Korean war.
He worked painting cars. He
taught Guitar lessons. In 1967, however,
while visiting his sister in California, Leonard’s life took a turn, he met
Jesus. At the age of 35, by himself in a
van, Leonard prayed that the Lord might enter his life, and that prayer was
answered. Ignited by his new passion,
and some strange (maybe even divine) inspiration, Leonard spent the next 14
years of his life working to patch together a giant hot air balloon with the
sinners prayer embroidered on the side, it was the same prayer that changed his
life, and he wanted to share it with the world. After a long road, a road that I could only
imagine contained miles of fabric, Leonard’s efforts were frustrated. That same long road had somehow landed
Leonard in Niland, but the dead end of one road would turn out to be a
marvelous intersection pointing a new course towards a new journey. Leonard had intended to stay behind in Niland
only for a week to make a “small statement” before returning to his home at the
time in Arizona. With little else
besides some cement and paint, his project began. Needless to stay, that week in 1984 extended
up through this last December when Leonard was moved to a home for health
reasons. Leonard made his small
statement, and it stands 4 stories tall in the desert, painted bright, a sign
of true life in a place marked otherwise only by desolation. If you ever go out to the Mountain, you’ll
certainly see that there are a wide variety of themes, everything from birds to
bible verses to hearts, and while the subject matter itself does seem to lack an
aesthetic continuity there is no doubt that Leonard has effectively used his
medium to communicate his message. In a
single word, the message is love.
For
some reason since the New Year I had a growing sense of urgency to go visit
Salvation Mountain, so I made a promise to myself the next time I set foot in
California I’d use whatever means necessary to make it out to the desert. Two weeks ago that opportunity presented
itself, so I caught a late flight from San Francisco to Palm Springs so as to
have a somewhat reasonable launching point to make the two hour trek East to
Niland. I got in late and planned to
start early the next morning to try to beat the heat. As it turns out the desert gets hot in the
middle of the summer, so I figured it might help me enjoy my visit if I could
avoid exposure to 115 degree heat.
If
you were to look up Niland on a map desolate doesn’t really do it justice. Heading East from Palm Springs there is
little besides the coast of the Salton Sea that stands between you and
Niland. The landscape is flat and vacant
but for the spattering of rickety telephone poles plotting the course of the rail
line that runs well into the horizon and on towards Yuma. Along the way were maybe 3 or 4 small
roadside stores, 2 or 3 of which have the appearance of having long since been
vacated. It’s no wonder the Navy Seals
have picked the desert lands outside of Niland to host their land warfare
training operations…if they need land, Niland’s got plenty of it, and not much
of anything else.
As I started my
drive, signs of life became increasingly sparse, the pharmacies and shopping
markets disappeared and nothing was left but open road. Needless to say it was a quiet drive, I actually
came as a surprise when I came upon other motorists at all. Part of me desired to wave the other cars to
the side of the road to point them back west for surely, in my mind, they must
have been lost. Before long the roads
were clear, so with my imagination sitting shotgun, I savored the still desert
morning and wondered what I might find down this bleak desert highway.
After
spending an hour traveling along the coast of the Salton Sea, I arrived in
Niland. The town comes and goes in a
blink, I can only surmise that the there might me a mere 4 or 5 streets in total that compose the quant
oasis. As I turned through town and set out to cross
over the train tracks that had guided my journey east, the roads were marked as
having been closed. I paid no mind only
because I had no other choice, only one road leads to the mountain, so despite
my hesitation to proceed I had no other options. The night before my arrival a flash flood had
moved through the area, and as I passed through town and made my way towards
the mountain the roads were littered with old tires and debris washed out from
the desert by the rain. As I wove through
the mounds of washed out sand and trash that covered the road, the mountain
appeared in the distance and there it stood a small statement in the desert
standing tall.
I
wish that I had made the journey sooner and had the pleasure to meet Leonard, I
had so many questions I wanted to ask, really I just wanted to hear his story, but
part of me knew his story still lived out there in the lonely painted hills
even though he did not. And so I was
left only to imagine, to wonder what love might have compelled such a
task. In his absence a group of
caretakers have adopted the mountain to protect Leonard’s legacy, a couple from
Portland was on duty when I crossed the rusty gate’s threshold to approach the
mountain. They were moved by Leonard’s
dream and decided to leave their home on the coast for a life in the desert, I’m
sure that they would struggle to explain why, but maybe that same persistent
nudging that drew me to the mountain found a way to pull their heartstrings as
well…and they simply listened.
My self guided
tour lasted no more than 30 minutes, because frankly there just wasn’t more to
see, but as I wandered around I couldn’t help but think about the big love, the
love of Jesus that compels such beautiful acts of insanity in men. The mountain had sustained some damage from
the rains, and the desert’s harsh climate had certainly left a mark on its
brightly painted surface, but I think that, in and of itself, is a profound
statement, maybe in a way it’s God’s contribution to Leonard’s work. Despite the wear and tear, the colors still
were vibrant, the theme was still clear, the small statement to me now appeared
much more like a battle cry than it did a whisper in the desert.
On the drive
back to “civilization” I turned off the radio, and sat quietly meditating on
what love means in my life, somehow the road back to what we know as “life”
seemed ironic coming from that place. In
some way Los Angeles now seemed far more desolate than Niland, despite the
ready appearance of life, the sparseness of that crazy kind of love rendered
much of the landscape I now saw lifeless.
On the surface Salvation Mountain is unspectacular, it might never be
heralded in the same regard as the Vatican or the other relics of faith that we
find around the world. Ultimately though,
I think I’m coming to understand that love is far more like painted clay in the
desert than it is gold on a steeple. It’s
real, it’s tough, it’s seldom what we expect, but when we hold it in the
context of the hands that shape it we may just come to understand it as
beautiful.
So much of what
we believe about the secular constructs of love is built by lofty polished
notions, they’re fun to look at and dream about, they inspire awe, but they are
flawed in that often “self” is the center of the way execute loving each
other. I think we desire love to be a
thing that is shiny and new looking, but real love is battle worn and its
precious characteristics it is seldom made from gold. Jesus was born in a stable, he was a man of
humble means, and he lived a life immersed in an ordinary world made of “clay”. When I think about what love is really meant
to be and the way I believe I’m supposed to be living it out, I would hope that
it bears some resemblance to Leonard’s work through the Mountain. I believe love is a hard labor, I believe it
is messy; I believe that on the surface it can appear unspectacular, and in its
finest moments it makes no sense. For
those of us who know it however, the only thing that truly makes no sense is to
love any other way. I know that there
are times in my life that I feel like I’m living in the desert and it seems
like I’m a bit crazy, but part of the miracle is that the love of Christ compels
us to those places not as lonesome travelers but as companions of HIS towards
some greater end. And while life might
leave us a little worn down from the harsh conditions of this world, I do
believe that love’s colors posses a resilience that shine brightly even despite
the foreboding conditions we face. Even
though the “small statements” of sacrifice, steadfast, crazy love may go
understated on the surface, they have an affinity to create real change and
they possess longevity quite unlike anything I know.
When I think
about Salvation Mountain, I can’t help but think about God’s love, I think this
would make Leonard happy to know. What’s
stranger is that there’s a God who loves me enough to make a guy like Leonard
who is crazy enough about him to show me just how crazy God is about me. So much about Leonard’s project makes no
sense, but I think that in part is what love is all about. Love, real love, does that which no one else
is willing to do, it does that which cannot be explained, and it does so in
ways that despite the fact that they may never understood seem to resonate so
deeply and profoundly that they leave a real lasting mark. At the end of the day, love seems to breathe
life into the deserted places of this world, it withstands the desolation to
ignite our lives with color. This is the
truest testament of Christ’s love for us, that despite how unlovable we might
in fact be, he loved us anyways, not for his sake but for ours…love is a
creation work, and much like Salvation Mountain, salvation itself is the
creation of life where before love’s breath no life could have existed.
While I have
never met Leonard, it seems like he was a simple man who followed his heart and
trusted God to make something beautiful out of the love he had found. He never questioned the rationale behind it,
he never doubted the significance, he just moved forward in trust and in hope
believing that the miracle of God’s love would be enough to see him
through. I guess to me the miracle is
something even bigger, the miracle is that not only would God’s love be enough
to sustain, but its sufficient to sprout new beautiful life in the most
unsuspecting of places. I want to love like
Leonard, because I think Leonard loved like Jesus, and as strange as it appears
on the surface it truly is a beautiful thing.
Painting Clay,
CP
