Four years ago Auburn lost a great woman. Thank you Wells Warren for reminding me to honor her this week. Her service from four years ago is below: MEMORIAL FOR RACHEL DAVIS STRICKLAND Auburn United Methodist Church 769th Week as Priest 595th Week at St. Dunstan’s Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. It is a privilege and a joy for me to be with you today to celebrate the life of Rachel Davis Strickland, a most gracious lady and a woman of extraordinary beauty and strength. Like the Rachel of the Book of Genesis, she was both wise and resourceful. Like the Ruth of the Hebrew Scriptures, she was loyal and capable and always willing to make the best of every situation. Rachel and her husband Billy have been beloved members of our Auburn family for many years. Rachel is best known for the fine work she did as a wedding director for literally hundreds of marriages over those years. There is a Shakespeare sonnet that I often recite at the wedding rehearsal, the night before a wedding. It seems most appropriate to describe the lifelong, loving relationship between Rachel and Billy: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his heighth be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Those beautiful words are more a hope than they are a realized fact for a young couple on the night before they are to be wed. They are a prayer for the man and woman who will become one in marriage, rather than any accomplishment. But for Rachel and Billy, they are more than words; the sonnet describes their life together, a lifelong, loving relationship that began sixty-one years ago. They were both eighteen, and they had known each other all through high school. They drove from their hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, across the state line into South Carolina where they were married by a Justice of the Peace. It’s easier to get married in South Carolina, in case you need to know. Perhaps the young woman who is married with as little public notice and lack of fanfare logically and emotionally becomes the woman who helps to make others’ weddings the most joyous of celebrations. She attends to every detail. She dots every “i” and crosses every “t.” She selflessly devotes her time and attention to the needs of other people, and she gives of herself willingly and wisely. This was certainly true of Rachel. Their home on Felton Lane became a place of peace and conversation and hospitality and good food and pleasant surroundings and great comfort for many of us, and it was Rachel who made it so. After all, Billy doesn’t even know how to load the dishwasher or do the laundry. He has been a kept man, a king in his own castle, and it was Rachel who took such wonderful care of him, and us, all these years. In her last days, in the comfort and care of Bethany House, it was Rachel who received tender loving care from her Billy. He did not leave her bedside for the eight days her body and mind held on to this life. He slept in a chair at night, and he was there when she fell asleep and there when she awakened. He was, to paraphrase W.H. Auden … Her North, her South, her East and West, Her dying week and her Tuesday rest, Her noon, her midnight, her talk, her song. They found a true home in Auburn, Loveliest Village of the Plains, but a part of their love and life will always remain in North Carolina. In Fayetteville, at Duke University, and in the sky of Carolina blue. Auburn became home to Rachel, after many moves in those early years. They shared a passion for sports—basketball, baseball, football —and they loved Auburn. Perhaps Rachel didn’t enjoy feel quite the consuming fire for the game that her Billy always has. But then he was the player, the scorekeeper, the director of marketing. She was always his helper, and for her, he always wanted to be a better man. Just a few years ago, their family grew from three daughters—Julie, Cindy, and Penny—and their families, to include the Wittens—Beth and Steve, and their little girls. Beth was returning to work at the Red Cross from maternity leave, and she asked Rachel if she knew a good sitter. Billy did. He volunteered Rachel and himself for the job. It was the start of a new loving relationship, and years of devotion, and times of great joy and celebration. Kate and Caroline lost their grandmother in Macon about the same time, and Rachel became their grandmother. It was her way—to find joy in the joy of others. And now, Rachel has found her a new home, in the courts of heaven. She is welcomed into the household of her loving Father. She is greeted by angels, and archangels, and all the company of the saints in light. And she has seen the Lamb of God face to face. And there is no more pain or sorrow, and all her tears are wiped away. She has only one small task left to perform: it was his last request that she save a place for her Billy. Amen. Peace be with you, Wells+ The Rev. Dr. John Wells Warren (334) 332-3222 [email protected]
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:52:02 +0000
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