I stepped out of the car to take a short walk to a historical site in town that I had never seen. A bit of research for a future moment. The path was loose dirt. It was quiet and still in the woods. The light was low in the sky. Tall green stalks brushed against my shins. I kept looking at them thinking bugs were attacking. The site is over 150 years old and locates the earliest settlers in the Athens area.
We headed back to the car and then I saw shiny amber glints in the trees. I stopped and saw. I realized that I had been seeing them recently, but had ignored them. It’s really a marker of summer. The cicadas have arrived. For 5-7 years they have been down under the ground in the roots of plants eating and growing and preparing. Then, they come out at night. It is their only defense. They climb and climb in the darkness. The first light they have ever seen is the stars and moon trickling through the leaves. Then, after finding a place, they attach and slowly they shed their skin. Scientists call these shed skins “exuviae,” all that remains behind.
I love that definition, “all that remains behind.” It seems like our own story. We all develop over a long period of time. We are nurtured and grow, but at some point we have to step out into the light ourselves. It is a very vulnerable time. There are many dangers. People and ideas coming looking to feast on us. Eventually, we begin the process of transformation. It requires leaving something behind.
Paul says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me” (I Cor. 13:11). The stuff you put away, the stuff you shed, that is your “exuviae.” For some, it is the toxic ways of racism of their family of origin, for others the intoxicating elixir of greed and materialism, for others the sole crushing weight of abuse.
When I see these little shells, I think about thoughts and ideas that I need to be honest about that are surrounding me and encasing me and in some cases suffocating me. What do you need to get rid of that you might be healthy and whole and fly?