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This is my last night in Shreveport. I had fun this week, not only interacting with new folks, but also walking down Memory Lane, as it were, without tripping up too many times with my veracity or recollections.
But one thing that tickled my soul earlier today was recalling when we made a decision thirty-two years ago, to take our little Artist’s Haven, which was meeting at the museum, and place it in a more centrally located building in town. We decided to rent an H&R Block store, which was on hiatus since tax time was all finished and there was no more need to drain finance off the common man.
It was a small place. They said it was 750 square feet, but I’m sure that included the roof. I jokingly told the real estate agent that we were a fellowship of creative Christian musicians and writers, so we thought it was quite apropos to have our gathering place in a building of tax collectors. I don’t know whether the joke escaped his Biblical purview or if he thought it was in poor taste, but I moved on quickly, signed the lease and set up shop with our little entourage in the enclosure.
We were young and adventurous, so we decided we wanted a really cool sign outside to advertise that something different was happening in town–and it was happening right here. We got permission to remove the H&R Block logo from the lighted pole, and we purchased some white, shiny plywood that was the perfect width to slide into the slot for illumination. Little did we know that cutting out the letters to spell “The Haven” was going to be an arduous task, demanding several different kinds of saws (of which I had no acquaintance).
After about four or five days of being in a perpetual state of disappointment and exhaustion, we actually completed the sign, climbed up on two rickety ladders and were delighted beyond our wildest dreams when it slid down through the gap, into its place of rest.
That evening when we turned on the light, the sign was so bright that you could see it for blocks. Matter of fact, we had hoped to get recognition in the Shreveport Times for having such an attractive sign–but unfortunately, only received a story in the Gazette about people complaining because they nearly crashed from being blinded by the light.
It was so audacious that some of the religious folk thought we were a Satanic cult because they mistook the word “Haven” for coven. (As you may have heard, there is no IQ test involved in church membership.)
We didn’t care. The first night the sign was lit, I drove by it at least thirty-five times, reveling in the beauty of the symbolism of being a “city set on a hill for all to see.” After a while, as things often do, all the furor about the sign disappeared and it was just another message in the night.
But I was always thrilled when I saw it–partly because it was so difficult to make that it reminded me of the Pyramids, but mostly because a handful of simple, young people got together and did something in unity–for no other reason than just trying to bless and enlighten their world.
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Jonathan’s thinking–every day–in a sentence or two …
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