One of my favorite directors, Ingmar Bergman, is commonly considered to have been motivated by a crisis of faith. His films often touch on characters grappling with Christianity and its figures (i.e. The Seventh Seal, and later, Fanny and Alexander). Even more frequently, though, we are presented with characters that have lost faith in the notion that our lives are guided by something good and sane, as with Alma in Persona, or Anna, in The Passion of Anna.

I got by for many years thinking that, because I was raised secular, I was not a candidate for a crisis of faith. But I was Very Wrong.

There is a magic that is logical, a magic that is very real. It is painful to the heart to watch people that I love live without this knowledge. People make up their minds. So, I have made up my mind to not make up my mind, not about anything, unless it is what I consider to be fact: that little can be ruled out, that without light it is dark, that there is usually some light to be found. I plan on putting many matchbooks to good use.

I've been writing on my typewriter. It hums, and I'm off and running. Some poems I will transcribe here. Some are only for paper. But I'm writing a new chapbook. I even have a short story almost done. The story is called Ballad of Flynn Farm. The chapbook is called,

Stranger Things Have Happened

I just can't remember when.