The tragic loss of his childhood friend puts a boy on the path of religion - but his inner feelings remain as repressed and turbulent as they always were.

A man's lonely life focused on the pursuit of reason and music leaves him questioning what more there may be in the lives of other people and of religion.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

When a ten-year-old boy stands up at a family dinner and declares he wants to meet God, his proclamation spurs a series of philosophical debates.

When a woman finds her purse stolen, she retraces the steps of her eventful day only to realize that the encounters, and her life as a whole, are empty and purposeless.

When a fourteen-year-old boy moves with his family to a farm town, he reads a book that leads him to have a crisis of faith and he begins to question what really happens after death.

A mother struggles to provide her daughter with comfort in an unstable home as her husband constantly searches for new employment.

After a drunk college boy falls off a balcony, a slew of characters--a groundskeeper, another student, a chaplain, and an RA--relate to his death in different ways. Their stories are sidelined for the core matter: that a boy died.

When a young man leaves his home in Kansas City to find a career, he struggles to settle down in one spot. He wanders, impoverished, across the western United States and finds a transcendent understanding of the human condition.

A writer reflects on his mother’s incredible strength, which he depicts in a short story. However, his mother does not approve of the piece as he had hoped, and he soon makes an important discovery.