Given by the Rev. Mike Doak
at the
Memorial Service for Evelyn Locke
Carrollton Church of Christ (Christian-Disciples)
September 21, 2009

A few years back… audiences of all ages were delighted by the release of the animated film, “Toy Story”.

One of the central characters was a futuristic space explorer by the name of Buzz Light Year.

At critical moments in the plot… just when Buzz prepared to swing into action… he would announce with vigorous enthusiasm… “To infinity, and beyond!”

Of course… from the point of logic… the very mention of the term infinity precludes there being anything “beyond”… since infinity itself admits to no beginning and no end.

Infinity is… well… infinite.

Evelyn’s love for all of you is infinite… in the same way that Psalm 139 reveals to us something of God’s infinite love.

We read there… these affirmations of God’s intent for our lives:
 

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

  You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

God had Evelyn in mind… long before she made her appearance in her beloved community of Augusta.

God had Denton and Evelyn in mind as a couple… brought together to fulfill His promise made to Abraham… long before their wedding day.

God had Darrell…Vickie…Rick… and Jerry… in mind long before Dent and Evelyn held them and called them their own.

“And in Your book of life… they were all written.”

“The days fashioned for me… when as yet there were none of them.”


“How great are your thoughts to me… O God!”

“If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;

“Yet… when I am awake I am still with You.”

Evelyn had a deep and profound love for many things.

She was a cracker-jack at math… she enjoyed exercising her mind with puzzles and quick to reconcile the books at the bank where she worked… or in the family’s business ventures.

She enjoyed reading… and she amazed me with her recall of many of the classics… she was particularly fond of the poetry of William Cullen Bryant of the Hudson period of American literature… and I’ll come back to that in just a moment.

She loved to can fruits and veggies… to cook… and to “supervise” all of those activities.

Evelyn loved listening to the “oldies” on her radio… and often during my visits we’d find Frank Sinatra accompanying our preparations to share in the Lord’s Supper.

Evelyn loved Emma… her life-long “alter-ego”… who was perhaps the    only person on planet earth that could say things to Evelyn that she      really needed to hear.  Somehow… if Emma said it… Evelyn would give the matter a full hearing.

Am I suggesting that Evelyn could… at times… be stubborn?

Well… let’s say Evelyn was “deliberate” in her thinking!

Evelyn had a deep and profound love for many things.

But in my time with her… I learned more about the little town of Augusta than you’ll find in the records of the Carroll County Historical Society.

Evelyn’s life took her many places…

With Emma… they drove a car down south to Dent at his military base… and rode the train home together.

Evelyn enjoyed travel… and she and Dent were blessed to much of that together… even moving to Florida for quite a while.

Despite these excursions…which were spokes in the wheel of Evelyn’s lifetime… the hub of the wheel was Augusta.

Her father’s general store… the barber shop just behind… the Christian Church  where Evelyn was baptized into her life-long walk with our Lord… the little post office… Manfull’s Orchard… the school house… the apartment above and the house just next door.

These were the places Evelyn loved to describe for me… and I have shared with her family how I can almost hear the screen door creek at the store as sweaty little faces appear in hopes of a Popsicle or piece of penny candy.

But the places weren’t nearly as vivid in Evelyn’s remembrances as were the people collected there… in her beloved Augusta.

She grew up in a place of welcome…acceptance… sharing what her family had with anyone in need.

And in the depth of the Great Depression… there were many who had needs.  Her family took them in… they extended credit which many times could not be repaid… but they extended it just the same.

Augusta was the hub of Evelyn’s wheel of life.

We used to joke that a person could start out in Augusta… and go anywhere in the world!

And she did… Augusta, and Beyond.

For… as we know… infinity includes that little town of Augusta… and it was in the crucible of that compact little place that Evelyn forged an amazing life under the ever-loving care of God – her Father, and Christ – her Savior.

Perhaps it was back to the wooden-framed school house there that Evelyn’s memory roamed… when a month or so ago I visited with her and she began to quote for me the closing stanza of Bryant’s brilliant poem, Thanatopsis.

I share with you now… what Evelyn shared with me…

Thanatopsis

(William Cullen Bryant)

Augusta… dear Evelyn… and yet Beyond… let us pray…