news is best filtered through a 4 year old

This news is making a pretty big splash today.
I did a little digging and found really vocal people on both sides of the fence. The "fence" of course being whether or not these toys are good things, or sacrilegious things, or lame enough to not qualify for either.

I wonder what I would have thought had I not met Isaac a month ago. Isaac is almost 5 and very outspoken and precocious. I met him at a shoot we did where we asked preschoolers "What does Jesus look like?"

Isaac said, "A porcupine!"
I asked, "really?"
He said, "NO, silly! I was teasing. Everyone knows Jesus has long dark hair, a white robe with a blue sash. And he smiles a lot."

It wasn't the first "blue sash" response we got. As a crew, some of us thought that strange, others said - "of course he wore blue!"

Isaac was such a ham in front of the camera that we asked him to stay and sit with our next interviewee, Brandon, who was very shy.

Brandon's answer to everything was "I don't know."
Isaac was a good encourager, but we couldn't get anything else out of Brandon.

So, we gave the boys their ice cream compensation and sent them on their way.
I was surprised a half hour later when Isaac returned.
He marched right up to me and said, "I have something for you."
He presented his hands - in one, a GI Joe figurine.
In the other, this -













I immediately thought, "so that's the blue sash!"
Isaac's mom told him to tell me why he brought it.

He said (I'll never forget this moment):
Because I can't believe there are kids who don't know about Jesus. I want you to show this to the other kids today, so they can at least know what he looks like.

I offered to take a picture so he could keep his toy.
He refused by saying, "That's okay. I know all about Jesus. I think I better share him."

So I guess the bottom line is - yeah, having the figurine in my office elicits quite a few sacrilegious comments during the week. But all in all, I think it's a pretty good thing. Even if he's the whitest Jesus I've ever seen, with a cheerleader face, and clean feet. Sharing him has to start somewhere.