This is part of my Rest Stop series. Contemplative posts that find God in everyday moments—from Monday morning coffee to changing seasons. Published midweek, these brief reflections provide spiritual nourishment when you need a pause in your spiritual journey. You can read others by pressing this button:
The first crunch happened this morning on my way to the postbox. Three weeks of watching leaves drift down, but today they’d dried enough to make that satisfying sound beneath my feet. Autumn’s percussion section has joined the orchestra.
There’s something primal about this pleasure. Children seek it out instinctively, deliberately stepping into piles for the pure joy of hearing them crackle and scatter. Adults pretend we’re too dignified, but I caught myself taking the long way round the churchyard just to walk through the deepest drift twice.
What makes this sound feel so right? Perhaps it’s the way endings become music. These leaves spent months in green service—converting sunlight to sugar, breathing out oxygen, creating the shade we sheltered under in summer. Now, in their dying days, they offer one last gift: the simple pleasure of sound underfoot, the reminder that even finality can bring joy.
There’s theology in this crunch, the kind that emerges naturally rather than being forced. These leaves let go when their season came to an end. They didn’t cling to branches, didn’t fight the inevitable, didn’t make their dying into drama. They simply fell, and in falling created beauty.
I think about their journey from bright green hope to golden letting go. How they knew, somehow, when their work was finished. How they released their grip without bitterness, trusting that their falling served some larger purpose they couldn’t see. That’s the kind of faith I’d like to cultivate—wisdom about seasons, about timing, about when to hold on and when to let go.
The crunch beneath my feet speaks of countless small surrenders. Each leaf a decision made, a grip released, a life concluded without regret. Together they create this carpet of completion, this pathway of finished business. Walking through them feels like moving through a library of small prayers, each one saying, “It is finished.”
But there’s also resurrection in this sound. Next spring, these leaves will decompose into soil, feeding new growth, becoming part of next year’s green abundance. Nothing is wasted—not death, not even autumn’s brief display before winter’s stripping away.
The sound follows me back to the house, leaves clinging briefly to my shoes, carrying autumn indoors. Later I’ll brush them off, but for now they’re fellow travellers, reminders of the morning’s small lesson. That endings can be beautiful. That death doesn’t always feel like defeat. That sometimes the most profound act of faith is knowing when to fall.
Tonight, more leaves will drift down in darkness, silent and unseen, preparing tomorrow’s soundtrack. The earth receives them all—the dramatic ones that fall in broad daylight and the quiet ones that let go whilst we sleep. All of them contributing to this season’s song, this crunch of comfort beneath the feet of anyone willing to walk the autumn path.