I love nature.  Because I believe in a Creator who started it all and who keeps it in motion by His power, I am constantly astounded by the complexity of the smallest parts of His creation.

Yesterday was no different.  What was different was the location in which I found the piece of creation that amazed me.

It was outside my front door.  Before my feet even touched the grass or the dirt, my eyes and imagination were captured by the tiniest of creatures—one I had never seen before.  At least, so I thought.

I saw a pile of trash walking.  With a total length of half an inch, it was a minuscule pile, but a pile nonetheless.  I almost had to rub my eyes to be sure it wasn’t a trick of my aging eyesight.  

No.  I’m sure that little blob walked down the rail along my front steps.  I reached down and put my hand on the rail, and it stopped.  Then with just the barest touch of my index finger, I nudged it.

Down to the ground beside the steps, it tumbled.  I could no longer see it in the mass of vegetation and dirt, so I just walked on to my destination up the street.  But, when I returned a half-hour or so later, it was back up on the rail.  

I didn’t put it there.  It couldn’t have blown up there in the wind.

It must have climbed back up.

I took a photo. 

It seemed to be in a hurry and didn’t want to stay still for me to get a good shot.

So, I took a video.  Right along the edge of the handrail, it zipped along, stopping only when I put a hand in front of it.  It had experienced that before and didn’t want to tempt fate, it seemed.

Inquiring minds want to know.  They do.

What is it, this pile of trash that walks?  

I did some searching and found a couple of options, but in comparing the photos I took and the ones in the scientific articles about the little camouflaged creatures, I found that this is nothing more than the larva of the common green lacewing, using the debris of its victim’s bodies for camouflage.

The beautiful, delicate creature in the main photo that accompanies this article is a mature green lacewing.  Created by its Maker to destroy aphids and ants (and many other varieties of plant-killing pests), the lovely creature moves in beauty and grace to fulfill its purpose.

Just not at first.

I posted the photo and video—along with an explanation of what was pictured—on an online nature page of which I’m a member.  It has inspired wonder (and dread for some) in several hundred members who pay attention to such things.  Most members accepted the explanation without arguing.

One fellow in the group, though, posted two or three times, insisting it was a “trashbug”, despite my clarification.  I can only assume that’s what his family and possibly his friends have always called it.  

But the green lacewing goes through several stages in its life, in every stage taking on a different form.  We call it metamorphosis.  The word means to make a complete change from the shape and behavior of the previous stage.

The example of metamorphosis most familiar to us is that of the caterpillar, which changes from the original worm-like form to that of a beautiful butterfly.  

I sat in a coffee shop this morning and bantered with my learned friends.  Bob had ordered his coffee in a to-go cup today.  I only mention that because the disposable cup had a zarf around it to keep his hand from being burned.  Yes, it’s called a zarf.  I don’t know why. Ask your AI friend online.

The lovely folks at the coffee shop write Bible references on the zarfs to encourage their customers.  I’m not good enough to have thousands of verses at my mental disposal simply from seeing a reference, but Google helped me find the message.  I have memorized this particular verse in the dim, distant past, but I need help some days now.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT)

It was an aha! moment for me.  Not that I haven’t thought about this before.  I know that our Savior is making all things new for those of us who have experienced His grace.

But, I can’t stop thinking about that guy who will never think about my insect friend as anything other than a trashbug.  Even though the ugly little larva stays in that form for no more than two or three weeks of its entire life cycle.

Two or three weeks as an ugly stack of animal carcasses, and it will never, ever, be accepted as anything else.  Even when it has become the spectacular and lovely creature you see in the main photo.

Trashbug!

My learned friends looked at me with disbelief when I said we can never change enough for some people.  So, I asked them about a very familiar television evangelist who died recently.

“What do you think about when I say his name?”

They admitted to thinking about an adulterer and a perverted man.  

Even though he repented.  Even though for the decades since his public humiliation and subsequent public confession, there has been no hint of his returning to that sin.

Trashbug.

I am not my past.  I’m not.

As far as the east is from the west (do the measurement yourself, if you can), my sinful past has been removed from me.  Yours too, if you’ve given Him your life to make new. (Psalm 103:12)

He who has begun that work will continue it until the day when there is no more temptation left to be resisted—no more sin to turn away from.  (Philippians 1:6)

You are not your past.

We are who God says we are.  Not the loser people remember when they look at us.

We have become the lovely, useful children of a Loving Father.  Flying on the sleek, transparent wings of His grace and mercy, we touch the world with beauty and purpose.

But, it’s easy to let the world around us draw us back.  I felt the draw just recently when, in casual conversation, someone mentioned the name that bullies in elementary and junior high school once used to embarrass me.

No one uses the name in reference to me now, nor have they for many years.  And yet, in an instant, I was that boy again.  In my mind, I was.

But, I’m not.

He says I’m not.

The ugly duckling I was once is gone.  The trashbug is gone.

Forever gone.

Now is the time to fly.

I won’t wallow in the trash again.  Won’t carry it on my back.  Nobody is going to knock me to the dirt and make me cry “Uncle.”

I’m going to let these wings dry in the sun for a few minutes.  You’ll do a trial flight or two with me soon, won’t you?

Mount up on wings.  

Leave the trash behind.

Metamorphosis.

 

 

“You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”  (C.S. Lewis)

“He raised us up together with him and seated us together with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…”  (Ephesians 2:6, NET)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2025. All Rights Reserved.