"Hey, is that a new bag?"

I have a lot of open tickets with Marc: the next beer, the next mountain-bike ride, the next organizational-strategy session, the next bike-building party, the next snow camping trip, the next "New Way to Communicate/Collaborate/Connect" implementation, the next theological/smallgroups/discipleship/church politics discussion. We've been "collaborating" since we both came to the Vineyard in the mid nineties. I have a text message in my phone that I'll keep for a while because it's gathers all these into one place: something like "Hey Dave, check out Jott, a new way to communicate ... how about lunch, or a mt bike ride and we'll talk church". There's too many things we didn't get to do enough of.

We had a common faith, of course, but we shared a subordinate faith as well: as we heard at the memorial, Marc's second place of worship was REI. Now, before I was on the pastoral staff at the Vineyard, I was on "pastoral staff" at REI, because I worked there when I met him. I thought about calling Marc on the Friday the new REI opened in Mountain View and telling him to blow off work and come stand in line with me to get swag, but thought better of it. When I got to the store, Marc was at the front of the line. Gear. Love it.

I remember when his appendix blew a couple years ago and he needed surgery, I visited the hospital. He had just had a tube taken out of his throat, was weak and beat up. He could barely talk ... his life had been in serious danger. I biked to the hospital to pray, you know, cause this was serious ... but when I came in the room, he looked over at me and my kit, and said, "Hey, is that a new bag?" Now that's perspective.

Dave Maddalena