Hopefully you remember the movie "Ghostbusters". It came out during my junior year of college. Along with a couple of my good friends, we dressed up as the Ghostbuster trio at Halloween and went Trick or Treating in the girls' dorm. That was fun. Now, there's a cable television show where teams go out to measure paranormal activity and hopefully record a few ghosts on film or tape.

Today, as I travel around, I encounter many cities which have evening or night-time "ghost tours." Often walking, carriage, or bus tours, these tours take the curious past buildings that are supposedly haunted by tortured souls mourning over lost loves, tragic lives, or grave injuries. I see this most often in eastern seaboard cities. I guess because they have old buildings and one can imagine old buildings having well, old ghosts.

I guess I am curious, do you believe in ghosts? While I believe that across time and space there are dimensions we cannot even begin to imagine, and I believe that God can and sometimes does send angels to earth, I don't think I quite buy into the stories of tortured ghosts roaming around old buildings at night opening and closing doors and walking up and down steps. If they were really around, I think they would have at least discovered late night cable by now and be spending their nights watching infomercials for cleaning agents and cheap jewelry.

Someday, though, maybe I will ask God whether ghosts really did haunt old buildings in eastern seaboard cities. And perhaps He'll prove my current thoughts wrong and respond, "Oy Vey! You try dealing with a couple of billion souls and see if you don't have one get stuck somewhere now and then. Now, I remember back in our "expansion" of 1863, we were having to stick them everywhere because we just didn't have enough space. I intended to retrieve them all but, I guess, a few got forgotten here and there. What's a guy going to do? I'm not as young as I used to be, you know!"

That brings up a question, do you, like me, think of God as having a funny accent? I can't get over that. But it's an improvement over my old view where He was just this judge sitting on His very tall throne who we'd all have to parade in front of as he dealt out our judgments. "... deal, deal, no deal, definitely no deal, deal, sorry about your luck, Chuck, deal, no deal ..."

Now, I see the gates into heaven more like immigration into Mexico. As you pass through, you either get a green light meaning you can go ahead or a red light meaning that you have to stop and have your baggage examined. (Just kidding ... well, sort of.)