On a chilly spring afternoon, I walked into the crypt of an unfinished cathedral in Mejorada, Spain, to find the grave of the frail old man I had come to interview.

Justo Gallego, 91, has been building his own cathedral almost single-handedly since the 1960s. With a 125-foot-tall cupola, the “Cathedral of Faith” is hard to miss, but talking to its architect proved far more complicated.

I had made an appointment through a friend of his, but Mr. Gallego was in no mood to talk. Hunched in front of a wooden stove, he made it clear he had no time for a journalist. Disappointed, I took another walk around the cathedral and settled on the steps of its esplanade to finish some other work.

Eventually, I went back in and found Mr. Gallego still transfixed by the glow of his stove, but in a different mood. For the next few hours, we discussed the Catholic Church, the Spanish Civil War, Gaudí’s architecture and why some people devote their entire lives to a single pursuit, whatever others might think about it.

A Syrian boy who was forced to look

SOMINI SENGUPTA, international reporter

MUHAMMAD, young Syrian refugee living in Beirut

In Beirut, I met a little boy who was forced to watch beheadings in his hometown in Syria. He would have been around 9 at the time, the same age as my own child.

He described holding his mother’s hand, not wanting to look, but also being unable to look away. Looking was mandatory, he said.