Things Not Seen

Renee Carter, a mechanical engineering student at Campbell College, settles in for the evening and asks her computer to begin recording her journal. Talking to her dog, Cogito, she shares thrilling news: she has landed the internship at Whit's End, where she will help design, engineer, and repair John Avery Whittaker's amazing inventions. Then she recalls how it all happened, starting with an interview in which she told Mr. Whittaker exactly where she stands. She believes people cause problems like war and poverty out of ignorance, and that steady scientific progress will fix them. "I think math will save the world," she declares, adding that faith seems useless to her. To her surprise, Whit is not offended. He finds her position intriguing, and instead of turning her away, he invites her to try the Imagination Station that very afternoon.

The adventure Whit gives her comes straight from the Bible, and Renee is dazzled by how real it feels, right down to the smells and tastes. She meets characters like the centurion with his sick servant, the bleeding woman, and a girl who has died, and though the stories touch her, she insists afterward that faith still is not for her. She admits she comes from a family of faith and once had it herself, but something happened that she would rather not discuss. She would gladly believe in God if someone offered proof, but Whit gently points out the catch: "If you have proof, you don't need faith." Renee agrees completely; that is exactly why she calls it useless. Even so, Whit welcomes her aboard, gives her a full tour, including an emergency kill switch that shuts down the whole shop, and tells her to report the next morning.

Her first day starts badly. While she works in the computer room, Eugene Meltsner discovers her and announces that he knows nothing about any new intern. Connie Kendall has never heard of her either, and a search of Whit's office turns up no note about the internship. Worse, Whit cannot be asked, because he is sealed inside the Imagination Station doing delicate programming and must not be disturbed. Renee does manage to impress everyone by explaining that the word sabotage comes from the sabot, a shoe factory workers once threw into machines, a fact even Eugene has to admit is correct. Connie decides that anyone who can outsmart Eugene deserves a chocolate soda and takes Renee downstairs to learn the counter. Over WodFam ChocSods, Renee wonders aloud whether Whit changed his mind because of her unbelief, and finally shares her secret: someone very close to her got sick, and she had faith God would heal him. She even used to sing "Jesus Loves Me" to help him fall asleep. But he died, and ever since, she has relied on proof instead of faith. Connie assures her that would never change Whit's mind, and adds that she and Eugene were not Christians when they started at Whit's End either, because grace has a way of surprising people.

Then everything goes wrong at once. A power surge blows the lid off the soda blender, and moments later Renee's phone rings. It is Whit, calling from inside the Imagination Station, sounding shaken. He could not reach Eugene or Connie, so he needs Renee to do something drastic: go to the computer room and hit the kill switch, shutting down all of Whit's End. Renee protests that an improper shutdown could destroy data and damage his inventions, but Whit simply says, "It'll be all right, Renee. Trust me." Before anyone else can hear his voice, Connie accidentally drops the phone into a chocolate soda, ruining it and destroying Renee's only evidence. Upstairs, Eugene flatly refuses to allow the shutdown, warning that it could corrupt Whit's work, and Renee has nothing to show him but her word. As Eugene moves to stop her, Connie holds him back and shouts for Renee to do it. Renee throws the switch, the lights die, and in the sudden darkness her friends vanish.

Out of the blackness comes Whit's voice, congratulating her for doing exactly what he asked. Renee is stunned to see him standing there instead of inside the Imagination Station, until he reveals the truth: she is the one inside it, and everything since the Bible adventure, including going home the night before, her whole first day, and the emergency, has been part of the program. Downstairs, over a real chocolate soda, Whit asks whether she still finds faith useless. He quotes the words "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," and shows her that this is precisely what she practiced. She held on to the internship she hoped for even when there was no proof he had given it, and she acted on a phone call no one else heard, at real risk, simply because she trusted him. Renee tries to argue that this was obedience, then practical faith, nothing like religious faith, but Whit points out with a smile that his practical definition came straight from the Bible. Then he introduces her to the real Eugene and Connie.

Back in her room, Renee finishes her journal by admitting to Cogito that every so often she suspects she might still be inside the Imagination Station, then remembers he was not part of it, so she knows she is not. Or, she corrects herself, perhaps it is more accurate to say she has faith she is not. Before bed she sings the chorus of "Jesus Loves Me," the same song from her past, and after the recording ends she whispers goodnight to Cog and tells him she misses him.