According to some reports, parents are in an uproar. Some are especially bothered by the tattoos, although the first tattooed Barbie appeared way back in 2009. Barbie has since had those removed and opted to get more. For some reason the tattoos seem to be a greater concern to parents than Barbie’s pink hair, vulgar choice in pet names, and trampy wardrobe. But nobody who has followed Barbie’s recent history will be surprised by her makeover. A few years ago she raised eyebrows when she dumped Ken and took up with an Australian surfer dude named Blaine.

Of course, Barbie’s look has changed many times down through the years, usually in conjunction with her career choices. Barbie started out as a fashion model. But she has also been a stewardess (back when they called them stewardesses), a nurse, a doctor, a paleontologist, an ambassador for world peace, a president and a hair dresser. She’s also been in the service. Barbie served in the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines. She has been a police officer, firefighter and a Baywatch lifeguard. No wonder Barbie has dropped out. Imagine all the effort it took to climb the corporate ladder, not to mention the years of schooling. Wasn’t that Barbie we saw in the crowd during the “Occupy Wall Street” march a few weeks ago?

Still, there is something iconic about the old girl. A few years ago my wife brought out her old Barbie dolls so that the little girl who was visiting could play with them. The little girl had fun with them. But maybe not as much fun as the mothers would have had if they had joined her. The truth is, this new Barbie look wasn’t crafted for little girls at all. She is a doll designed for the adult market. Barbie is as popular with adults as she is with children. If Barbie is anything, she is a mirror of modern culture. She is not so much as a measure of what American girls hope to be, as she is a cartoon about what we think we have become. Barbie tells us that we are successful. She says that we are hip. We are perennially young. Like her we can have all the best clothes and all the cool toys. Barbie promises that we can be whatever we want to be, even if we can’t. She is as American as it gets.

But the truth is, as disturbed as parents may be about Barbie’s new look, it is actually pretty tame compared to some of the things we can see on television and on the street. Even her pink hair is not as edgy as you might think it would be. Every morning when I walk from the train to my office, I pass a woman sporting a pink bob that looks a lot like Barbie’s. She is a medical professional, dressed in hospital scrubs. Perhaps she was inspired in childhood to choose such a career when she played with her nurse or doctor Barbie doll. Tattoos are main stream today as well. When Barbie first appeared on the scene tattoos were rare. Unless, of course, they were the temporary kind you sometimes found inside the gum wrapper. Every kid I knew loved those. But real tattoos, the permanent kind that you couldn’t wash off, were mostly worn by sailors and Marines.

These days the men wear earrings and women sport tattoos. Male nurses are common, women are doctors, girls can join the baseball team and you had better not call the person who just handed you a bag of peanuts on the plane a stewardess. You wouldn’t be tempted to anyway, since the flight attendant is as likely to be a man as it is to be a woman. But if it is a man, you might just ask him if his name is Ken. I’ve always wondered what Ken decided to do after Barbie dumped him.

Dave is a people person. He is someone who is energized by the crowd. He loves being part of a small group. In other words, he is pretty much everything I am not. I am energized by the crowd, but only when there is a pulpit between us. I hate small groups, for the most part. I am, as Dave told me at dinner the other evening, the same curmudgeon that I was in college.

This came as something of a shock to me. Because to tell you the truth, when I was a young man I did not see myself as a curmudgeon. In fact, I thought I was a people person: an outgoing, vivacious, life of the party sort of guy. Looking back on it, I can see that what is true of Dave is also true of me. As far as my personality goes, things have not really changed much. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Jesus hasn’t made any difference in my life. He has. My values and behavior have changed radically since I began my walk with Jesus in the early 1970’s. But being a Christian does not seem to have changed my personality, at least not fundamentally.

The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed, “There is no profounder change in the universe than the change which is described as regeneration; but regeneration–the work of God in the soul by which He implants a principle of divine and spiritual life within us–does not change a man’s temperament.” In other words, what the gospel does promise to do for us is something more radical. Instead of changing our temperament, it promises to set apart what I am and have for God. The shy person does not suddenly become outgoing but learns to glorify God with his or her shyness. The surly person does not lose the capacity for surliness but will be able to subject this natural tendency to the purpose and power of God through the Holy Spirit (often with great struggle).

What I saw in my friend Dave the other night is what I see in my own life. Jesus Christ set us on a trajectory of grace and we are still following its arc. We are further along than we when we last met face to face. The intervening years have altered our appearance. But the aim is still true.

My latest book Folly, Grace & Power is now available from Zondervan. You can order a copy at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com or Christianbook.com. Click here to learn more about it.

For some the memory

fades with time;

the pain takes longer.

The song “Closer to the Light,” originally written as a tribute to the late Mark Heard, is from Bruce Cockburn‘s Dart to the Heart.

Recently I was a guest on Greg Wheatley’s radio program Inside Look along with Skye Jethani senior editor of Leadership Journal and my colleague Rosalie de Rosset. Greg asked us to discuss how our lives have changed since 9/11 2001. Here is a link for those interested in listening to the program:   http://www.moodyradio.org/radioplayer.aspx?episode=75453.

I am excited to announce that my latest book Folly, Grace & Power: The Mysterious Act of Preaching is now available. You can learn more about the book at follygraceandpower.com.

I hope not. Surely there is more to heaven than boiled beef and small conversation about last night’s game. The problem here is not really the menu or even the company-though both could stand improvement on occasion. The problem is the language we use to describe our experience. I am not condemning the art of small talk, which has a legitimate  place in the life of the church. I am criticizing the church’s slovenly approach to language and its penchant for meaningless hyperbole.

In an essay entitled “Standing by Words,” Wendell Berry speaks of the importance of fidelity to language. According to Berry “there is a necessary and indispensable connection between language and truth.” Berry states, “My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps a hundred and fifty years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning.” As a Church which is constituted by the Word and which worships and serves the one who is called the Word, we ought to be concerned about this decline. Language matters deeply to God. Instead, we ape the culture. We resort to cheap hyperbole to describe our Christian experience. We overstate, understate, and euphemize. We are civil tongued but inveterate liars.

The good news is that there is a remedy for this. According to Ephesians 4:15 we are to “speak the truth in love.” Unfortunately, most of us are proficient in only one of these languages. Either we speak the truth but without love. Or we speak out of love but cannot bring ourselves to tell the truth. We opt for the tired path of truism and cliché. But if  we are to speak as if language matters, such half-measures will never do.

At the bottom of the pile we found the scattered debris of youth: assorted Lego pieces, Star Wars books, spare change. At one point in the relocation Jane uncovered a teddy bear we bought for him before he was born (he never really took a shine to it).

I realize that this is a common experience. I know that this is a good time for Drew to move. I know that he will come back to visit. Jane and I are excited for Drew. But we are also sad. The house seems a little emptier now, as if a piece of its soul has departed. The silence has a different character. It is more hollow than it was before.

In the days following the move a few more bits and pieces surfaced. Nothing important, really. Certainly nothing we need to tell Drew about. It is only the dust of childhood. Strewn about the floor like shells that have washed up from the deep and come to rest upon the shore. A message in a bottle from a little boy I once knew.

Regular followers of my blog–all three of you–will have noticed that I have been on hiatus. I wish I could give you a really spiritual reason for this. For example, I would like to say that I spent the past three months in a cave in the wilderness seeking God and have now come with new insight. Or I preached to thousands. Neither would be true. I did spend some time on the beach and I did do some teaching.

 Actually, the reason for my absence is much more mundane. I got busy. Then I went somewhere for a month without a good internet connection. I found the absence of regular internet refreshing…and frustrating. I experienced less stress, partly because I wasn’t subjected to minute by minute descriptions of the stock market’s decline, the deficit battle and assorted other ills. But I also found myself getting anxious. Why? Because I wasn’t able to get minute by minute reports of the stock market’s decline, the deficit battle and assorted other ills. Plus, even from a distance, I could feel my small flock of readers drifting away to other, more attractive blogs written by famous people. Now I am back, trying to suppress my ordinary anxiety and think of something meaningful to say on my blog.

“Care is a question addressed to the future in fear and trembling” Helmut Thielicke observes. “It is the fearful question of what is going to happen.” It is not a frivolous question, even though most of our fears about the future are never realized. Sometimes the lowering clouds do foreshadow a storm. “But the one care that should concern us,” Thielicke warns, “is that we do not throw away our trust in the Lord who would sleep in our ship and is able to walk upon the waves.” Cast your care upon him, for he cares for you.

You can now pre-order my latest book Folly, Grace & Power: The Mysterious Act of Preaching  (published by Zondervan) from Amazon.com at the amazing price of $11.55! Christianbook.com has it for $11.49! IT’S A FIRE SALE YOU CAN’T IGNORE (if this was late night t.v. I’d be shouting)! You can learn more about the book at follygraceandpower.com. Please help me get the word out about the book.

Now that May 21 has come and gone, perhaps we should ask how so many of us knew that Jesus wasn’t coming back on Saturday. It is true that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5:2-4). Harold Camping should have known better than to set the date. But I can’t help feeling disappointed that Saturday ended like any other day. I am even more disappointed that I was so certain it would. It could have been Saturday. It might be today. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Here is a story about a time when I thought that the rapture really had come. It appeared in Christianity Today in 2005:

Come, Lord Jesus—But Not Too Soon | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

Events like these expand the perspective of some people. Their eyes are opened to a wide horizon of need. They feel a greater sense of compassion and even a kind of wonder. But not me. My instinctive reaction is the opposite. I want to hunker down. I feel  myself receding into my own world. I feel smaller in the face of such great events and my world grows smaller with me. I watched the pageantry of the royal wedding and wished my church experience were a little more like that. Not the gown and the funny hats but the grandeur of the music and the sense of dignity reflected in the service. I listened to the reports of the execution of Osama Bin Laden and wondered why I didn’t feel bad for him. At the same time I wondered why I didn’t feel exhilarated enough to dance in the streets. Images of the rubble left by the last week’s storms flicker on my screen and I wonder why I don’t feel sadder.

Is it because I am shallow? Am I a narcissist? Yes, I suppose I am. The malady of sin has a way of making your world small. In The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis portrayed Hell as a shrunken and shrinking realm where the damned soul is shut up in itself.  “Good beats upon the damned incessantly, but they cannot receive it” Lewis writes. “Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes are fast shut.” Fortunately, God is greater than my small heart. “Only the greatest of all can make himself small enough to enter Hell.” Lewis explains. “For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend-a man can sympathize with a horse but a horse cannot sympathize with a rat. Only one has descended into Hell.”

 That is to say, only one has descended into Hell and ascended again. Thanks be to God.