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A Lamp Unto My Feet

Something strange happened yesterday.

I was giving my presentation at the World Journalism Institute conference for Christian journalism students. The plan was to share my testimony and its relevance to how and why I started blogging, then discuss what Christians can do with a blog.

Things didn’t go as planned.

For some reason, I sounded as though I were on the verge of tears while talking about my former drinking problem. I expanded on it when I didn’t intend to, and I didn’t flesh out my points about what Christians can do with a blog. I don’t know what happened. My own testimony has made me cry before, but not in years.

I’ve been feeling directionless lately, and that morning I asked God to point me in the direction he wanted me to go, no strings attached. You see, whenever I ask God to illuminate his plan for me, I typically do so with conditions. I’m not really trusting him because I have a clear vision of what I want to do. What I end up doing is praying that he allows my will to happen. I ask him to make my wishes come true. So far, that hasn’t worked out very well. So yesterday morning, I took a leap of faith and said, “Whatever you want me to do, God, show me. Even if it’s just two steps in front of me, illuminate the path ahead.”

I don’t know if that prayer had anything to do with the incomplete presentation. Several people thanked me for sharing my testimony, and several more asked about my blog consulting services. I’ll keep you posted on how God is answering that “illuminate the path” prayer.

(Side note: I finally met World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky and made another contact at Christianity Today, a publication I want to write for.)

In the world but not of the world…

There were ten or so speakers at the conference, most of whom are professional journalists working in the field. I’ll discuss a few here.

Photojournalist Kenny Irby of the Poynter Institute talked about what it’s like being a Christian journalist. He showed a series of slides from his portfolio and said Christians need to be a light to the world, no matter what we do for a living. Kenny showed a poignant photo of a man whose son had been murdered. The murderer was found not guilty, and the distraught man said his son had been murdered a second time by the courts. At one point Kenny decided to give the man some privacy, but he asked him to stay.

“I need to be with someone right now,” he said. And Kenny prayed with him.

Judith Howard Ellis of the Denver Post talked being a “change agent” in the evolving world of journalism. She’s a journalist who embraces the technology that is changing how people get their news. She encourages journalists to adapt to different media formats, like blogs, podcasts, and videos. How ever the public wants to read/hear the news - online, on iPods, cell phones, etc. - journalists should be prepared to deliver it.

I heard a new phrase yesterday, one that stirred something in me (and that rarely happens these days). Judith said Christian journalists shouldn’t just tell stories. They should tell redemptive stories. (This pertains to feature writing, as opposed to hard news stories, obviously.) Redemptive storytelling, she said, are stories that focus on people doing the right thing, whether or not the message is overtly “Christian.”

Independent Journalism in Cuba

Orlando Gutierrez, college professor and co-founder of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, and his wife Janisset Rivero-Gutierrez of Miami talked about the growing independent press movement in Cuba. Liberal Americans are having an inexplicable love affair with Communist dictator Fidel Castro. People living under his regime are having a very different kind of relationship.

Orlando said life in Cuba is controlled by the state and the Communist regime. From where you go to school to what you end up doing for a living is under state control. If you come from a family critical of the regime, you are barred from certain schools and professions.

The news is controlled by the state. There is no such thing as freedom of the press in Cuba. You write what the government tells you to write. Period. Those who don’t lose their jobs and often end up in prison. After China, Orlando said, Cuba is the largest jailer of journalists. For many independent journalists, their faith is an important factor in the need to tell the truth about life under communism.

An independent press agency started in Cuba in 1995. In response, the Communist regime enacted a gag law in 1999. Reporting the truth about the internal situation in Cuba is considered treason, and lawbreakers face up to 20 years in prison. But you know the human spirit. Nothing will stop people from telling the truth. People go to great lengths to report the horrors inside Cuba, producing, copying, and distributing handwritten newsletters underground. Even political prisoners are part of the resistance, smuggling articles out of prison.

Someone asked Orlando and Janisset about their status in Cuba. They can’t return to the country without the government’s permission (they have family there), of course, and for all they know, they already may be charged with and convicted of treason. There is no “right to an attorney” or “due process of law” or “innocent until proven guilty” burden of proof.

Listening to them talk about repression in Cuba made me appreciate and love my country all the more. I got into a brief exchange during Q&A, unintentional on my part, with an audience member who propped up and knocked down a few straw men. Although Orlando made no mention of the US, the woman said Americans were no angels. There is repression here, she said, and there are certain things you can’t say or write in America. What? Something about being discouraged from speaking the truth about oppression of “African Americans” and other minorities, and political prisoners in the US, or some such.

I was writhing in my seat at this point, because I don’t like people bad-mouthing the US, especially trying to draw an analogy between actual oppression in Communist Cuba and perceived oppression in the greatest country on the planet. Ridiculous on its face.

“At least we have the freedom to complain without fear of imprisonment,” I interjected without raising my hand. “You have the freedom to sit there and criticize the country, and insult George Bush and the government.”

Another straw man came hurtling through the air. She said that as Christians, we need to stand on the side of the oppressed everywhere and not just in Cuba. I don’t recall anyone saying or implying otherwise. Can’t remember exactly what else she said, but I added, “We take our freedom for granted in this country, and that’s a shame.”

Somebody sitting beside me whispered, “She needs to go live in Cuba for three months.”

Indeed.

Actually, that woman was partly correct, but not in the way she assumed. There are certain things you can’t say or write in America without the PC police coming after you. For example, telling the truth about black crime rates or academic underachievement is practically taboo. White people, especially, risk being fired or ostracized for not following the script.