Happy birthday, Carl!

Gloria, at the time that we got married, was secretary to the principal at Regent College, Carl Armerding.  Gloria certainly enjoyed her time at Regent more than she enjoyed any other job, and her relationship with Carl was the closest with any of her bosses.  Gloria very frequently said that, coming from a somewhat anti-intellectual, and fairly provincial, denomination, being at Regent, and listening to, and sometimes discussing with, some of the greatest theological minds of our age, was like coming up out of the valleys to a mountaintop with, quite suddenly, a huge broad vista spread before her.

Carl is turning 90 years old.  Regent College is making a big deal out of it and is having a birthday party.  I am invited and I would like to try to go.

I actually knew Carl before I met Gloria.  I have known Carl for more than fifty years.  I suppose that means that I am one of Carl's oldest friends!  (I got that honour primarily because most of the rest of the candidates are dead.)  I'm pretty sure that I first met Carl when he taught a seminar on the book of Habakkuk on a weekend retreat at Keats Island Baptist Camp.  Then (based on Carl's description of Regent that weekend) I went to Regent and attended for a year, taking their Diploma of Christian studies.  Carl taught us Biblical Theology.  (One of my fellow students that year, who also got the "Dipsy S," on the basis of the diploma as his theological training, later became the BC Area Minister for the Convention Baptists.)  Then I got on to the Regent Senate, and before the Senate meetings I would hang out in Carl's secretary's office.  Then I married Carl's secretary.

(While Gloria was Carl's secretary, Carl was working on a commentary on the book of Judges.  Infamously, he was always late with it and constantly missing deadlines for the publisher.  Since Gloria died, I have been sporadically looking to buy a copy of it.  When I talked to Carl on the phone yesterday, he admitted that he never did finish that commentary  :-)

Gloria and I enjoyed attending the Laing Lectures and other public lectures provided by Regent.  Regent was important to Gloria, and I guess it was pretty important to me over the years as well.