thoughts from a park intern

Alrighty then, first things first: Yes, I'm still alive. The Cannon didn't explode, I didn't fall off of Maryland heights, and I wasn't chased away into the hills by a crowd that was angry at my lack of tour giving skills.

I've just been busy. And tired. Last weekend, I was able to claim the joy of wearing four layers, two of which were wool, in 100 and 115 degrees temperatures. That kinda thing really takes it out of you, I'll tell ya. I figure that at Fort Stevens (an Oregon Civil War reenactment I will be attending at the end of August) that I'll be freezing, due to it only being in the 60s or 70s. For those of you who will be there, I apologize in advance for my chattering teeth.

While being busy with exhibits, transferring 19th century equipment from place to place, guiding tours of the town, and learning to live and breathe the life and history of Harpers Ferry, my mind has also been busy, thinking about such things like the cause of the Civil War, its cost, its lasting effects.

I go to battlefields that, from Oregon and my books, are so very distant, so disconnected from anything I have previously known, that it is often hard to comprehend, and only now that I am out where it happened am I beginning to understand and figure out what really happened. After visiting the battlefields (or should I call them slaughter houses?), I visit the cemeteries, where thousands of young men, not much older than I am, are laid to rest.

After viewing such places as 'bloody lane' and 'Burnside's bridge' of Antietam, as well as the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and Cemetery ridge of Gettysburg, where men went down like autumn leaves in a windstorm, it is gut wrenching to see all the headstones spread in beautiful rows over what once were raging battlefields but are now lovely parks where people come to understand, to lay a wreath of flowers, to honor a loved one.

I think it only natural that I (or anyone, for that matter) would ask the question "why?" Why did more than 1 million Americans decide that it would be a good idea to take up arms and slaughter each other for 4 long years, and completely destroy half of the country?

In my study of history, particularly the Civil War, I think the simple answer is ideas and beliefs.

We all have something we believe in, something that helps us make sense of everything around us. Something that we will hold to when we have to let go of everything else. Its part of the spirit and the mind that God gave us when we were created. Because he doesn't make build-a-bears, he makes people with their own minds who can (only in certain ways) determine what they want to do.

These sort of ideas are what drove the men of 1861-1865. This is what drove the Union men up Marie's heights, and into the killing zone at Cold Harbor, and the same thing that allowed the men of Virginia and North Carolina to storm the west slopes of Cemetery ridge. However, instead of dying valiantly and digging in so solidly to our beliefs that we wind up hurting and harming others, there is another way to voice and support our beliefs. Its called listening.


Now, being American and also a bit of a hot head myself, I am opinionated and I generally don't apologize for my beliefs. However, through my own personal experience, as well as seeing/hearing/reading about others' experience with differing beliefs, I've come to the realization that while I certainly am not required to accept and adhere to them, I should at least respect them.

This is something everyone can learn, especially myself. The reason being, if we don't learn to respect other's for their God given and law given right to their own opinions, whether we agree with them or not, we will become so intrenched in our own petty, arrogant ideas that we will become deaf to anything else, any other opinion, even possibly to God's own voice. This is terrifying for me. I know what it is to be blind and deaf to God, and it hurts. Since a very shaking and hurtful event in February, I have been in every way an athiest. Thankfully, with God's persistant love and attempts to get me back, I have been able to crawl back in the saddle, able to attend church in Bolivar, and have been talking to God again. I am glad to see my short stint of atheism come to an end.

So, as a word of advice, coming from a guy who has been on both sides of the equation, be willing to listen. If you don't, you will become angry, bitter, and so intrenched into your beliefs that not even those you love the most will be able to get through to you, and it'll take an act of God to help you see through the dark clouds again. You'll be left alone, with no hope of a coming dawn, without the Cavalry(or is it Calvary?) coming to the rescue.

Be willing to listen, just listen, even if you don't agree with it, because they have a right to their opinion and beliefs just as much as they do, and they deserve to be heard, ESPECIALLY if their opinions/beliefs affect you, because it will help you to understand another aspect, which helps you understand more of the whole situation, and if you really don't agree, and you still are angry and hateful towards the other person(s), it will allow you to further sharpen your own beliefs.

Any way, enough of my random rambling. This is something that's been on my mind. Anywho,
I'll be around!