Writer: Mathew Marquez | Photos: Lou Mora
Journey just two hours east of San Diego into the surrounding desert region, past all the tumbleweed towns, and the landscape transforms into something nearly alien. This is a place where the pre-dawn light illuminates the previous night’s chill as a silvery sheen of dew across the desert floor. The prospect of moisture conjures coyotes, jackrabbits, and desert mice, who peek out of their protected dens to search the saddles and bowls of the ground for a quick drink before the gentle light becomes to torrid blaze. At sunrise the desert flowers begin to splay and kiss the morning air, pushing their pedals and leaves toward the kinder and gentler morning light. Up above, Cooper’s Hawks on dawn patrol launch into the first thermals of the day, spying for some early morning prey foraging a thousand feet below. By mid-morning reptiles begin to make their way from holes to stony perches to bask and warm their cold-blooded veins.

    This is the Anza-Borrego desert, where life is never assumed; it’s earned every day. With its rocky terrain, sandy washouts, and the occasional Joshua tree, it’s easy to understand that what does live out here is a special kind of tough. This is a land where life is dictated by the rising and setting sun.

    And for the last nine thousand two hundred sunrises, this remote and desolate patch of earth has been the home of Leonard Knight and his living testament to the world. For over twenty-five years Leonard has faced the morning light and never uttered the words “I quit” or “I’m retiring.” There have been no days off. No contract negotiations or labor disputes. He has faced each of these mornings with a mantra of Build, baby, build. For Leonard all of this funnels into one simple message: “God loves you.” And because of his understanding of God’s love for him, every day is another opportunity to spread the message that has been the singular focus of his adult heart.

    One can’t possibly imagine all that Leonard has sacrificed in order to serve this simple message. Living an almost monastic, if not curiously prophetic life, he has never married. He has never known the joy of holding his own children, has no sustained income, no retirement, no worldly accolades—just sixty feet of rainbow-painted adobe clay piled higher and higher every day. Despite all the things Leonard doesn’t have and in the face of tremendous odds under that harsh Anza-Borrego sun, Leonard’s unusual brand of upbeat and infectious evangelism has never changed. “It’s always been about God’s love for the world. Plain and simple,” says Knight. He wouldn’t trade any of this for the things of the world.

    He greets everyone with a sincere “Welcome home, friend.” His gentle manner is befitting of another era in our country. It’s easy for me to imagine him in black-and-white reruns of The Andy Griffith Show being neighborly to Sheriff Andy, Aunt Bee, and Opie Taylor. Though his voice trembles, revealing his age and fatigue, there is a constant backbeat to his tone. His staccato-like-conversational style indicates a sense of urgency and expectation. It is as if he knew I, and all his guests, was coming and he has so much to catch us all up on. I took the tour five times with him this day. He never once wavered in his sincere excitement to share his creation, God’s message, and his simple joy with everyone he meets.

    Not once.
    Not even when a van full of little kids took to his creation like a jungle gym. “Does that bother me? No, of course not,” says Knight in response to the little yard-apes bounding around. “Jesus loved the little children. He wanted them to play. What better place for them to play today than around the words of Jesus himself, right?”

    As the day progressed, I realized this is simply Leonard’s style. He knows his scripture for sure; but more importantly, he lives the scriptures through his daily actions. He draws deep from the well of faith, hope, and love and gladly shares it with everyone around him. More than once Leonard’s actions—to serve his guests water, give them gifts and hugs—moved me to a point of humility and self-reflection.

    There can be no doubting that Leonard’s heart and mind are strong, but age is an enemy with great patience for us all. And today his entire being is a canvas testifying to his ongoing fight against his weary body. As he guides me around the property with a stilted gait, it is apparent that his joints are stiff from all those years of hauling paint and dirt. His knobby, arthritic, trembling hands are life-stained in rich tones of brown and frosted with silver hair. The thick calluses on his hands hide deep within their craggy folds the long hot days of smoothing adobe clay. Remnants of bright yellow and blue paint collect deep in the cuticles of his fingers. His wispy, white hair does its own thing in the desert breeze. And when he hugs you, and he will certainly hug you, his skinny frame pokes at you from underneath his heavy green canvas work shirt. All the while his jeans cling to his waist for dear life. Seeing this makes me chuckle as I think of how bony grandpas get and mysteriously lose their bums over time.

    If his body is a canvas of time, then Leonard’s face is an incredible portrait to behold. His face is sun-tanned and blown smooth by the Anza-Borrego winds. Deep character lines frame the edges of his face and run like the dry riverbeds surrounding his storied mountain. And his scrubby, thinning eyebrows serve sentry over the real oasis of Leonard Knight’s character: his deep brown eyes. Even at this stage in his life, his eyes have a precocious twinkle about them. Somewhere deep within those eyes is the never-ending kaleidoscope vision his mind sees for this mountain cathedral.

    In my short time with him I could tell this old man is tired, but he has in no way given life his full portion. And until he has fully served his days, there will be no quitting or going home for Leonard Knight.

From Hard Scrabble to Hard Work


Born as one of six siblings in November of 1931, Leonard’s entire life was shaped by the economic devastation of the Great Depression and a post-war world. “I don’t remember a lot these days, because I’m pretty old, you know? But I do remember my father and mother both working a lot. And as soon as us kids could work, we did. We all pitched in to keep things going,” says Knight.

    Growing up in Vermont on a thirty-two-acre farm that always needed work to keep going, Leonard learned hard work at an early age, and it would become a daily way of life for him. If the farm failed during these tough times, the very survival of his family would have been in jeopardy. This early life of hard work seems to have eclipsed Leonard’s own sense of childhood: “I should have had a happier childhood than I had gr