The Ghosts of Gettysburg

I'm back . . . this no-internet-at-work thing sure makes it hard to keep up on this blog. Anyway, here's the second part of what I wanted to post about Gettysburg. As I've noted before, the battlefield is well-preserved and not commercialized. (Ironically, it was preserved due to legislation introduced by congressman Daniel Sickles who, when he was a corp commander at the battle of Gettysburg, made an idiotic blunder that nearly cost the North the battle and caused III Corp to sustain terrible losses.)


The town of Gettysburg, however, is amazingly glitzy and commercialized. While I found it all a bit tacky (though we did go into some of the gift shops and an art gallery) it was pretty much what you would expect at most major tourist sites. What really bugged me was the obsession with ghosts. I saw three or four places that you could pick up a battlefield guide and probably a couple dozen places where you could sign up to go on a "ghost tour." One of them even told you what day of the week you could see which ghost . . . apparently they work on a schedule. I found it rather sick that apparently a lot more people go to Gettysburg to see "ghosts" than to see the place where thousands of men gave their lives in the turning point of the war that preserved the Union and freed the slaves.


The B&B we stayed at was no exception. While there was some focus on all the history of the place (at various points in its past it had been a bank robber's hideout, an underground railroad stop, and a Confederate field hospital among other things), most of the "bragging rights" had to do with the place being "haunted." In fact, the room we stayed in was supposed to be one of the "most haunted".


In the room was a little notebook for you to leave comments about your stay. About every third comment told about a "ghostly encounter," and all but one or two of them were completely absurd. You'd think people had never stayed in a creaky old house before (this place dated from the very early 1800's). My favorite one (and I think this guy was being sarcastic . . . at least I hope so) was a guy who said that when he reached down for the last cookie on the plate he and his wife had been sharing it was gone [insert ominous pipe organ music].


Karen and I had a great time blaming everything on the ghosts (e.g. when I stubbed my toe getting out of the hot tub or spilled something). One of the common "ghostly encounter" stories was of "someone rattling the doorknob" so I wanted to rig up some kind of live wire that I could touch to the doorknob when it rattled and see if we could hear some un-ghostlike cursing by the employee whose job it was to go around and rattle the occasional doorknob. Our doorknob actually did rattle, but it was because the door right next to ours swung into our door when somebody (it must've been the ghost!) opened it a bit too vigorously.


I think if I lived in Gettysburg I would be tempted to buy a Civil War reenactor's costume and go around scaring the daylights out of people on their stupid "ghost walks." You know, come screaming out of a clump of trees with a fixed bayonet straight at some group of people who have already worked themselves up into a state of fear because they're on a "ghost walk."


Seriously though, it really is sad that people are so willing and even eager to believe in ghosts. I won't deny that there are such a thing as "paranormal" occurrences, but according to the Bible those aren't the souls/spirits of dead people! Numerous passages (e.g. Luke 16:19-31, II Corinthians 5:6-8, Hebrews 9:27) indicate that once a person dies they go immediately to one of two places . . . heaven or hell (I suppose that "uncomfortable" fact is what people are trying to avoid by believing in ghosts). There's no hanging around because of "unfinished business," popping in to say "hi" at a seance, moving a shuttle around a ouija board or some such rot. The only spirit beings that can interact with humans are angels (e.g. Hebrews 1:14) and demons (e.g. Ephesians 6:12) . . . guess which one of those two groups would be okay with impersonating dead people in contradiction of what that the Bible teaches. I wonder if there would be quite as many people interested if they started calling them "demon walks". . .