And I'm convinced he made a cold-sweat leap of faith, that he had doubts, and that he has a deeper faith now because of this test. And whether you call it religious or not, no one goes through any kind of trial without having something spiritual happen to them. God's goodness, whatever that means, must shine through somewhere, someway, somehow. My job is to make the true story fit into this unalterable template, and to shepherd the author through the process to the point where he or she signs off on it, attests that it's real and true. I feel like a whistle-blower telling you this.
Next week is wedding lady.
The week after is Iwo Jima guy. And I know we rarely do justice to the stories that deserve it, and do too much justice to others. Yet still, there are worse ways to make a living. These are all things my friends expend great amounts of energy working for and dreaming about. And they're all acts of faith, in one way or another, all the urges that carry us through our lives and give us meaning and help us make sense of the accidents that befall us.