Happy Birthday Prof. Kelly!
Sacred Journey birthday greetings go out today to Westminster Theological Seminary Old Testament professor and good friend Mike Kelly. Mike, I can’t thank you enough for the big part you’ve played in making our first year at WTS more than we could have dreamed it would be.
And since this is your 40th, we must have the obligatory “old man birthday” joke. Ladies and gentlemen, we present Mike Kelly’s birthday cake:
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November 2nd, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Happy Birthday, Mike (if you read this)! I think it’s time for a mid-life crisis. Why don’t you go to Peru this summer?
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Hey Mark, you said that *I* made your first year more than you dreamed it could be. Was it all a lie? Was it? WAS IT?
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Pete, as that great theologian David Cassidy once said, “Dreams are nothin’ more than wishes.”
No, I don’t know what that means either.
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:28 pm
But you didn’t answer my question….
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:49 pm
All right…ALL RIGHT…enough already. You, Peter Enns, are my Westminster Dream Come True. I fall asleep every night thanking God for every pearl of wisdom that dropped from your lips. Sometimes, I fall asleep outside the door of your office, just to be near where you’ve been. If I could have another child, I’d name it Peter, even if it were a girl.
Just don’t tell Mike, OK? I mean, it’s his birthday and all….
November 2nd, 2005 at 8:54 pm
I’m more a Shaun Cassidy guy myself. Do You Believe in Magic? Da doo Ron Ron? That’s Rock and Roll? Classics that will live forever. Maybe.
Kirk, Peru parece aun mas un deseo hoy de ayer. Hablemos.
And Mark, I thought *I* was your Westminster Dream Come True? What gives?
Thanks, all. It has been a great day.
November 2nd, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Welcome back my friends, to the show that never Enns.
Yes, it’s my Westminster Nightmare (formerly titled “My Westminster Dream”). Working title was “Sucking Up to Profs Sucks”
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 pm
:sniff: I smell an upcoming Enns exam taken by one M. Traphagen, don’t I?
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Actually, I don’t have him for any courses right now, so as Neil Young said, “Why do I keep [s]ucking up?”
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Eaaaaasy there, Mark. We all know what your birthday cake looked like this past year.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:01 am
Yes, it’s true…my birthday cake was visible from the international space station.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:12 am
Force of habit?
I can neither confirm nor deny.
GFM <– just gets unpressurized payloads up and down to ISS in that ugly rustbucket we all knowingly love as “Shuttle”
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:18 am
Yes, dear readers, it does take a rocket scientist to build a truly great blog platform. I should know. I have one.
HT to Geof.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:23 am
Ignore Pete. He is a Yankees dork anyway.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:43 am
Best wishes on your Birthday, Mike, and may you enjoy many many more.
You served me very well during a conversation we had about 2 years ago and I have quoted you many times since.
You said “Theology is easy, compassion is hard”.
While the quote is only half right, it is 100% true. Thank you.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:47 am
…and by the way: Leviticus 13:40.
This goes for you too, Mark.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Hey, Mike, a belated Happy Birthday. Welcome to your 40s–always an adventure. And, as this blog indicates, you (yeah, Pete too) are a true blessing to the WTS community.
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Speaking of birthdays …
Mark:
Could you do us all a really big favor and set up your computer to blog Pete Enns’s birthday on January 2. (I have no idea how old he will be. I know it’s not an important birthday, like 40 … or 52. It’s just one of those forty-something birthdays that flash by so quickly. But pretend it’s a milestone or something).
As you know, they send out those nice happy birthday emails at the seminary so that we all feel loved and wanted. But Pete’s big problem is that on January 2 there’s usually no-one working at the seminary (except those of us grading papers and exams, but that’s another story), so no-one ever wishes him happy birthday (of course, we’ve never found out whether anyone would bother to wish him happy birthday even if they were there, but I guess that’s beside the point). The bottom line is every year, year after year, brother Enns goes into depression for about a month because no-one he works with has ever wished him happy birthday. (That kinda explains the emotional neediness manifested in his responses to your by-your-own-admission sycophantic gushing over Mike yesterday).
Matters get worse. As you also know from last Monday’s staff meeting, the original WTS holiday schedule would have brought everyone back to work on Monday January 2. You can imagine how Pete’s little heart must have risen in hope. There would be people actually working at Westminster on his birthday. Real-live people who would email him to wish him happy birthday or come to his office to give him a card or a cake (the fact that he won’t be there is also beside the point because it’s the effort that counts). But wait, the administration had a change of heart, reorganized the holiday schedule, and re-set the first day back at work for 2006 to January 3 … and yet again, Pete will be forgotten, yet again he will be a victim of January 2-itis: that post-Hanukkah/Christmas Eve/Christmas Day/Boxing Day/Festivus/New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day lassitude that groans, “Pete who?”
And once again he’ll suffer … and we’ll all suffer.
So please write one of your excellent sycophantic birthday blogs … today. Store it in your computer. Make your computer post it automatically on January 2 so that no matter where you are, no matter how hung over you are, you will have fullfilled what should be your #1, your must-do New Year’s resolution: make Pete’s birthday a happy one.
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:37 pm
:chuckle: Awwwwwww. [It's totally doable, Mark. Just click to edit the timestamp, set the date and time, and hit publish ... it'll show up on time. :mrgreen:]
GFM <– WP guru to the WTS blogerati
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:43 pm
I run the risk of taking away from Mike’s birthday blog but this Pete thing sounds s e r i ous.
The poor guy. I was going to say that he hides his disappointment well but now there are some things that seem to make much more sense. Like the time in hebrew class when he fell on his back fell to the floor and pounded his legs after somebody did not know that a shewa is silent after- before- no, after- a dages forte - no, lene… And look at that book he just wrote. Whats up with that?
Anyway, maybe we should have a birth month for him when of Dr McCartney’s classes could come and sing for him every day. Or maybe buy him a laser pointer that really can maim students with questions. Sort of as a keepsake reminder to cheer him through the tough times.
Sorry- I know I sometimes speak impulsively, but I really care about this guy, folks.
November 3rd, 2005 at 10:05 pm
For the record, I hate birthday celebtaions and reminders.
But, I’ll be 45 January 2. I am a 34 sleeve. I like Phil Keaggy and James Taylor and gift certificates to Borders and/or Barnes and Noble. I’ve also wanted to go back the that Yankees fantasy camp my wife Sue sent me on for my 40th.
Anyway, don’t worry about me birthday.
November 3rd, 2005 at 11:01 pm
I was going to suggest that we organize and Ultimate Fighting match for Enns and Kelly to duke it out over “who gets to be Mark’s Westminster Dream Come True. It would be the Reformed EVENT OF THE YEAR. All proceeds going to extra firemen and security on hand for Mark’s next birthday.
In other news, after several long (yet OF COURSE incredibly worthwhile) hours sitting at Kayak’s Coffee reading Enns’ book…
I come home only to find that he cannot spell “celebrations”. All my academic and theological ideas of Enns as Contender for Westminster Dream Come True dashed so quickly. I believe I will now have to rethink my reading of Enns book to fit my new and updated views alongside this new evidence.
I did, however, learn he has good musical taste, so I was able to stop weeping.
November 3rd, 2005 at 11:23 pm
Now that reminds me of a professor who so hated birthdays that, anywhere we ever went with him, we got a group of people to sing to him. Yes, even as we stood watching a Space Shuttle launch from Titusville …
November 4th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
For the record, I can spell. I just can’t type. Hope Michaela will give my book another try….
November 4th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
That may depend on the winner of the Ultimate Fighting match…
(I kid!…I’m gonna go read it RIGHT NOW. Or, soon.)
November 4th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
And Mic, be sure to buy I & I for all your friends for Christmas. As Pete told us almost every day in class, he has kids to put through college.