Warrior poet

WIE: Is there anyone you look up to who embodies that combination of strength and sensitivity?

McManus: I think of David in the Old Testament. He was an artisan and a warrior. He was a warrior poet. He had the strength of courage to kill Goliath and the artistic tenderness and sensitivity to soothe Saul’s spirit by being a harpist. Now, we may love that, but it’s also true that the same personality, that same person, can misuse both of those qualities. That same powerful essence that killed Goliath can also then kill Uriah the Hittite, as David does when he wants to take Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. And that same artistic aesthetic can be the guy who is on the rooftop admiring the beauty of Bathsheba, deciding he has to have her. So I want a guy to be willing to kill Goliath when we’re in danger. I just don’t want him to be like that with his wife and kids at home. You see, we tend to want a person to be one thing, and what we need to be is whatever the moment calls for.