Winter Light

Tomas Ericsson is the pastor at a sparsely attended church in a small, remote Swedish town. This winter Sunday, the cold or flu from which he is suffering is a physical manifestation of the internal strife has been feeling, he never having recovered emotionally from the death of his wife four years ago. He now questions his faith, which if God did not exist would answer many of the questions he has about life. His overall feeling affects how he deals with two congregants, who have their own very specific issues with which they dealing. Marta Lundberg, a substitute teacher, and Tomas, had a relationship within this past four years, partly out of circumstance. Marta knows that Tomas will never love her and she herself has never considered herself devoutly religious, but she, praying to God, has had her prayers answered in an issue dealing specifically with Tomas. And fisherman Jonas Persson has of late been feeling suicidal about a macro global issue which he believes threatens his and his wife Karin's very existence as Christians, and about which he feels powerless to do anything.