Just before my standing Wednesday lunch date, in the fall of 1975, I got a call from an account supervisor at the San Francisco advertising agency where I worked. “A vice president from the Wall Street Journal is here from New York,” he said. “Okay if I bring him by to meet you?” The newspaper carried ads I had written for one of our clients, a stock brokerage. But what did a hot-shot exec from New York want with me? “Sure,” I said, “but I have to be somewhere at noon.” Hanging up, I glanced at the full-page ads pinned to my wall. With clever headlines, amusing cartoons and succinct copy, they were pretty good, I had to admit. Even if they were print ads and not on TV. The brokerage firm; despite being a million-dollar client; had been somewhat of an orphan account. None of the art directors or copywriters wanted to handle it on a regular basis because the firm had decided not to use television. TV advertising was exciting, even glamorous. Friends and family saw your work in their living rooms.

People talked about it, quoted it. “Did you write that?” they asked. When our agency originally landed the account, I was going through a tough period at work. I was one of two associate creative directors and because the other guy had more TV experience, all the high-profile TV accounts went to him. It made me anxious and jealous. Wasn’t I working hard enough? I had wondered. I was as competitive as the next guy, although I did have a lunchtime commitment on Wednesdays that I refused to break: I met with a group of working people in a vacant store downtown for a midday Mass. The room was unfinished, the walls concrete. Two candles on the makeshift altar gave us light to pray by. In the shadowy ambience I felt like an early Christian secretly worshiping in the Roman catacombs. The service was part of my routine. But was that the way to get ahead in advertising? One day I found myself brooding through the noontime service. God, I can’t see my way through this work situation. I put my head in my hands.

Trust me, God seemed to say in the darkness. I am part of your life, all your life, your personal life and your work life. Work hard and trust me. I took away my hands. Everything was the same, the two candles on the altar, the shadows of my praying friends on the walls. But somehow I was different when I walked into the daylight. Back at the office, I offered to adopt the TV-shy brokerage account. I wrote the best print ads I could. As it turned out, the account became a kind of showpiece for the agency. My work wasn’t on TV, but I felt good about what I was doing, trusting God to lead the way. My office door swung open, jarring me from my thoughts. “This is Larry McDermott,” the account supervisor introduced me. I turned from the pinned-up ads and shook hands with the visitor from the Wall Street Journal. “Your brokerage ads are remarkable,” he said. “I wanted to meet the person who wrote them.” “Oh?” I said, puzzled. “I have a hunch you’re a religious man.” I stared at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Something comes through in the wording, an underlying message that we all make mistakes but we can always start over. It’s never too late.” He offered his hand again. “I have to catch my flight,” he said, “but whatever you’re doing, stay with it.” He left me standing in the doorway in shock. When I told a friend at the service that day, he said the man just might have been an angel. “He flew into town and flew out again, right?” We laughed at the notion. But in the Bible angels often come in disguise, to point out a direction or confirm a path already taken. My Wall Street angel had certainly done that for me. Several weeks later, I received an unexpected bonus: The brokerage house decided to produce a TV commercial and I was assigned the project. The ad won a Clio; the advertising industry’s equivalent of an Oscar; as the year’s best in its category. Angels watch over orphans too.