I’ve been on a cross-country journey for the past several weeks, in which I visited with the Westboro Baptist Church clan in Topeka, Kansas, and attended Ted Haggard’s comeback church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In addition, I’ve talked to many many people along the way about their faith and religion.
Most recently, I drove to Slab City, which is a forsaken piece of land out in the Colorado Desert near California’s Mexican border. People here say it’s the “last free place in America.” The site of a former military base, Slab City takes its name from the concrete slabs on which campers park. The state owns the land, but does not maintain it and people live here for free. There is no water, electricity or septic. Most of the people only come in the cooler winter months. But about 150 people, an incredibly hardy bunch, live here year round, braving temperatures that will climb to 130 degrees. It was 112 when I was there Saturday and Sunday.
At the entrance to Slab City is Salvation Mountain, an adobe mountain covered in bright paint and topped with a white cross.
Its creator is Leonard Knight, a desert prophet, an Elijah, who says God sent him here 30 years ago and commanded his Chevy dump truck to break down. While Knight was waiting to get his truck fixed, he thought he would spend a week building a little monument to God and Love. He never left.
Knight appears in Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, as well as the movie by the same name, which is about Chris McCandless, a young free-spirit who spent time in Slab City. McCandless eventually starved to death in an abandoned bus in Alaska. Knight knew McCandless and he portrays himself in the movie.
Today, he is 79, still living on the outskirts of Slab City, hosting tours and providing his testimony for anyone who cares to listen. I think the fact that his message sounds so refreshing illustrates how crazy things have gotten in this country. He opposes war and he makes no judgments on anyone, but he doesn’t really want to talk about that. Rather, he just wants to talk about love. My favorite part of the video is when he tells me that his message is catching on – and that even some of the churches admit we should be talking about love instead of fighting.
