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I first heard about Dean Muniz from a handful of people speaking about her death. I came to Andrews University too late to have gotten to know her, but those she touched I have had the pleasure of knowing.
As I've gotten to know a good friend, Chloe, she has here and there spoken of the impact Dean Muniz had upon her life, and the effect that the car crash which took her life also changed it. It compounded an already difficult time in her life.
While speaking with Chloe once, she began telling the story of a dean at Andrews, and I interrupted before she got much farther, and said, "Is this the one who died?" She looked like I had taken the wind out of her. She blinked and exhaled: "No. No, this one is still a dean here. Don't do that to me." I had no idea.
Most recently, I met Chloe and my old friend +Stephanie Lerner at one of the few good places to eat here in Berrien, the Baguette de France. A contact point between the two of them, having not properly met before, became their mutual experience of being on campus when the news came back that she had been taken from them. As I gathered quickly, they were both crushed. Besides being impressed by their having not met yet, I was kind of taken back.
I have a small family. Mother, father, single older brother, one uncle, and some cousins, most of which I don't know, or know very well. This has gotten slightly better, since I have kind of connected with a few on my dad's side of the family, but if you noticed I didn't mention grandparents, it's because I don't have any. When I was born, I had one living grandparent. My mom's mother, Gramma Dorothy. She died when I was 10. I didn't take her death terribly hard, and I'm not sure why. I didn't go to the funeral because it was during my outdoor school in 6th grade, and I think this was a good decision on my mother's part. Those were important memories for me there. It's possible I didn't have the closure from the funeral that a normal person would. I have only ever been to one funeral in my life, and it was for a person I had never met. I was shadowing a pastor for a class, and I was observing his handling of the funeral for the family. I have known others who have died, but they have either been acquaintances, or I was not near them when they passed. I have never lost anyone like Dean Muniz. Perhaps I've never even met anyone like her.
As I was texting with Chloe some days later, I was humbled by her descriptions of her.
"Dean Muniz inspired all of us; she wasn't just someone we loved; she was a woman we wanted to be like."
"If anyone who knew her tells me I'm remotely like her someday it will be one of the deepest compliments of my whole life."
I was so impressed by this last statement, I posted it to my Twitter account. Not having a Twitter, when I mentioned this to Chloe, she asked me what it looked like. I sent her my url.
"She celebrated me and was gentle with my heart."
She then quoted back to me a different tweet I had sent some time ago:
"...the price we choose is the price at which we'll be purchased."
She added the comment "Love that."
I remembered the quote, but also remembered that it was a while ago. I went to my own feed and found it - about three weeks previous. This is a long time in the life of a Twitter account. Dozens of tweets intervened what I sent and what she quoted me. Chloe had dug through a portion of my Twitter feed, as she has done with a Facebook album or two after becoming Facebook friends.
It felt nice that she thought enough of what I quoted, said, or shared was worth digging through that far. It made me feel like I make a difference. I told her I felt appreciated - or at least competent and that it "helps me believe I can be a positive force in the world."
I almost started crying when I wrote that sentence in the text.
I don't know if you have ever seen the film Freedom Writers, but it has been my favorite since I saw it one night at home in 2009 while studying at community college. It is the true story of a teacher that had a tremendous impact upon a group of students in a public school, giving her all and changing their lives. I have never cried more for a film. I immediately went from the TV to my bookshelf and pulled out my 2-3 year-old copy of the Seventh-day Adventist Minister's Handbook, and began reading its beginning pages about the call of a Pastor. I have known from that moment on that God would either have me preach or teach.
The core desire at the heart of these two things is the ability to share what I have gathered in such a way as to bless the life of someone else through its impartation. Malcolm Gladwell might call me a Maven, one who voraciously finds and gathers information and eagerly shares it with whomever will listen. From everything to PC keyboard shortcuts to an understanding of the gospel, I have sought to help others so they can benefit from what I know and they have not yet discovered. I am trying to save them the experience of having to go without it or find out the hard way. Waste, after all, is my largest pet peeve.
And yet, somehow, "waste" might be an appropriate way to describe many parts of my life then and since. I will not spend any more time on this blog about my habits, but they have somehow shut out my Maven-ness for the things that matter to me most. Jesus Christ, namely, and His abundant life.
By merely being here at Andrews studying Theology, I am a huge level back on track to this call of God's to my heart. For that I am most thankful. But the battle is not won in diplomas or term papers, but in hearts. That's what teaching and preaching believes the very most strongly. I have just such a heart in need of Teaching and Preaching.
I would cherish a Dean Muniz in my life, and I believe God is giving them in my life in His own way. But, like Chloe, my greatest complement and legacy would be to know that I became one myself -that I helped change someone else's life. Only God can make me such a force in this chasmic world.
"And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils:
freely ye have received,
freely give."
-Jesus
