I read an article the other day that said that the northeast fall would be one of the most spectacular of recent years. If the Big Picture is any indication of the local beauty of this season, I deem the article right on. We walked home tonight, our fingers warmed in the pockets of autumn jackets and our noses buried in turtlenecks and scarves. We begin to hunker down, prepare for the cover of winter. I am grateful for seasons--time to prepare for what's next.

I sat in his office last week and said a lot of things and he said one principle thing back to me: every season of life we enter into, we take the residue of the previous season with us.

We are storing up treasures for heaven, yes, but we are storing up todays for tomorrows too. Tonight we talk briefly of the Kingdom, the Already, the Not Yet; the On Earth as it is in Heaven; the eternity that starts now. We wrestle with abstract ideas about the Kingdom and how they work on earth, today. And the truth is that I don't know and I can't define. But I know this: the rainy summer gives us a spectacular fall, but it also forecasts a snowy winter, but in turn this means an early spring. I don't understand how the Kingdom of Heaven eeks its way into the Stuff of Earth, but I know it does and I know the residue gets on everything.

We are the residue and He is too. The Church is the residue and the Bridegroom still. Heaven leaves a residue and still has more to spare. Eden left a residue and so too the fall. We can't explain it and sometimes can't assure it, but it's there, as vibrant and visible as the colors of a northeast autumn.

You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us,
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

II Corinthians 3:2,3