Janeth Norfleete Day had a life before Beeson, but Beeson has never existed a day without Norfleete. Soon after I had arrived in Birmingham on June 1, 1988 to organize a new divinity school on the campus of Samford University, Norfleete Day came by my office for a visit. On the young side of midlife at that point, she had already enjoyed a distinguished career in library science having earlier served her country in the United States Navy. She said she felt that the Lord was leading her to launch out in a new direction, to prepare herself for the ministry of teaching. Later that summer, Norfleete became one of thirty-two students in the inaugural class of Beeson Divinity School.


Norfleete was a superb student at Beeson, intimidating, in fact, according to Dr. Richard Wells who introduced her into the mysteries of the Greek language. As Dr. Wells wrote to Norfleete, "A few more sessions of psychotherapy, and (I am happy to report) I will probably recover fully from that first year of teaching Greek-when, as I prepared for each class, I had your face in my mind's eye, asking about some arcane point of Greek grammar that only a real scholar like Dr. Thielman could understand!" Norfleete completed her Master of Divinity at Beeson in 1993 and went on to Baylor University to earn the Ph.D. in New Testament studies. Since 1992, Norfleete has served on Beeson's teaching staff, first in biblical studies and more recently spiritual formation. For a period of time she taught both Greek and Hebrew at Beeson!

But Norfleete's teaching interests have been broad as well as deep. She has been a curricular pioneer in our school offering courses on racial reconciliation, theology and the arts, medieval spirituality, and, perhaps most remarkably, "Evangelicals and Monastics: A Common Quest," a course she team-taught with Father Patrick Lyons, a Benedictine monk from Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. I walked into Hodges Chapel early one morning to discover the entire class chanting the Psalms, in the best tradition of St. Benedict and John Calvin!

Teaching, scholarship, and service-in the local church as well as the academy-are all things Norfleete Day has done with excellence. But they do not capture the heart of her involvement with our school for more than two decades. Dr. Fisher Humphreys comes close to this when he described Norfleete as a perfect colleague and then added: "You cared for your students above all else." This is a testimony I have heard again and again from students themselves. Norfleete Day has lived and worked among us as a woman of faith, a woman of God. In her quiet, humble, and unassuming way, she has modeled the graces of the Christian life and brought us all closer to the Savior whom she serves and loves with all her heart.

Now, after twenty-one years, Norfleete is retiring from full-time teaching responsibilities at Beeson. For several years, she has been building a home in the Smokey Mountains and she will move there this summer to begin the next step in her own spiritual journey with the Lord. I am sure that Norfleete would enjoy hearing from her friends and former students as she makes this important transition.

Ruth C. Duck, a British Baptist composer, has written a wonderful hymn based on the Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon in Luke 2. I offer it here to Norfleete and to all of us whose lives have been touched in special ways by her friendship and faithfulness:

Now let your servant go in peace;
let praise and blessing here increase;
for in our midst your word is done
and you have sent your Promised One.

Before the peoples you prepare
your way of life which all may share.
Your saving power is now made known;
among the nations love is shown.

Child, you are chosen as a sign
to test the human heart and mind;
for secrets hidden in the night
shall be revealed in piercing light.

Now let us sing our Savior's praise,
and tell God's goodness all our days.
while breath is ours, let praise be heard
for God's own faithful, saving word.