Saint by Ted Dekker Page B

Carl, to affect these waves. They are connected to your mind.”
    â€œI can push an object with my hand and make it move,” he said. “I can’t do that with a wave from my mind.”
    â€œBecause you don’t think of the wave as an object.” She walked to the chalkboard and drew a dime-sized circle. “Imagine that this is an atom, one of the smallest particles we know, yes?”
    He could remember this now that she said it. “Yes.”
    She drew an arrow to the end of the board. “If an atom were enlarged to the size of a dime, the space between it and the next closest atom would be ten miles in every direction. There are a countless number of atoms that make up your hand, correct?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut in reality, most of your hand is this empty space between the atoms.” She tossed the chalk into its tray. “This space, which was once thought of as a true vacuum, is actually a sea of energy. This is the zero-point field, most evident at a temperature of absolute zero. But it rages with energy at all times. Does this make sense?”
    â€œThis is all proven?”
    â€œYes. Finding ways to predictably influence this field is where theory takes over.”
    The light in Agotha’s eyes was infectious. She smiled. “Do you know how much energy the empty space between atoms holds?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œA single cubic yard of this so-called empty space, this sea of raw energy known as the zero-point field, holds enough energy to boil away all of the earth’s oceans.”
    Hard to comprehend, much less believe.
    â€œI want you to begin thinking of ways to step past your safe walls into this sea of energy. Imagine that your mind is connected to other objects through the zero-point field, just like islands are connected to each other by the sea. Can you do that?”
    The thought of going beyond the black tunnel of safety unnerved him.
    â€œIf you were to stand on your island—your mind—and send out a large wave toward another distant mountain in the sea, could you destroy that mountain? Or at least move it?”
    â€œI suppose you could.”
    â€œWith an idea the size of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain,” she said. “It’s all a matter of perspective. When you first tried to see the light at the end of your tunnel, what did you see?”
    â€œI closed my eyes and saw nothing but blackness.”
    â€œAnd what did you feel?”
    He hesitated. For some reason the memory of failure had never been stripped away. The first time they’d inserted a needle through his shoulder, he screamed until he passed out.
    â€œPain,” he said.
    â€œBut you found a way to construct the tunnel by pushing through the blackness to the light.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMaybe you should try to punch a hole in the side of the tunnel and push back the sea of heat. Change the heat, rather than just protect yourself from it. It’s theoretically possible.”
    The discussion with Agotha had been a few days ago, perhaps a week, perhaps a year. No, it was recent, very recent. Now in the safety of his tunnel, seated on the metal chair in the very hot/cold place, Carl decided that he would try again. He’d managed to take part of his mind off the light without the tunnel collapsing around him only three or four times, but each time, finding a way beyond the black tunnel’s walls had proven too difficult.
    It wasn’t easy to take even a fraction of his focus off the light. The light was his survival, his comfort, his life. He’d become very good at giving it his complete attention.
    Splitting the mind’s eye was not unlike moving his physical eyes independent of each other, something he’d learned with great difficulty as a sniper. He moved now with caution, first allowing the tunnel wall on his right to come into his field of vision while never breaking contact with the light far ahead.