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.

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.

One night while visiting his mother, a man contends with the nature of faith and family.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

A 5-year-old boy with a unique way of seeing the world feels alienated from his mother and tells her that he does not need her anymore. This viewpoint later causes him to lash out at his family, leading him to reflect on himself and his life.

A nine-year-old boy reflects on the heroes he's identified in his life, from religious figures to his relatives, while he and his father drive home on a snowy night.

A wife leaves her husband in order to ensure his ultimate salvation after they are rejected from the Christian church for their polygamist marriage.

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

An investigator stays in a family home in order to become acquainted with the family and all their intricacies while he investigates the case of family's adult son, who has threatens to kill the president of the United States to spare the lives of those involved in Vietnam.

Following her mother's death, a Chinese American woman relives her childhood days, halved between Catholic school and her parents' disintegrating marriage. She remembers her old ability to make unlikely miracles happen.