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What's With All The Tourists?

by James Barringer  
11/19/2010 / Christian Living

I live in Orlando, which is one of the tourist capitals of the world, so it was an interesting perspective shift when my wife and I took our honeymoon in North Carolina. The level of tourist traffic to the western part of the Carolinas has shot through the roof in the last decade or two, and it's easy to see why: mountains, state parks, lakes to go boating on, whitewater rivers to raft on, scenic towns to ogle, wildlife to adore...the list goes on and on. We happened to make our trip during the most touristy time of the entire year, in October when the leaves were changing, so we got to experience the full force of the migration.

It's one thing to moan about tourists when you live in Orlando, a place that has been defined by Disney World and other theme parks for half a century. Almost nobody is left here who remembers when it was any other way. North Carolina, on the other hand, is a place that's actively in transition; most of the people there remember just ten years or so ago when things were vastly different. Everything they know is changing; sleepy small towns aren't so sleepy anymore when tourists outnumber the natives by three or four to one. And, as you might imagine, a lot of the natives have pretty strong opinions about all of this.

My wife and I met two people who summed up the attitudes pretty well. One was a store owner in the tiny town of Black Mountain; I'm going to call her Barbara because I think that's her name and because she looks like a Barbara. (Barb, if you're reading this, drop me a line and correct me.) Her store sold what can best be called knickknacks: jellies and jams from local folks, shiny rocks, abstract sculptures, and an entire wall full of nightmare-inducing garden gnomes. She was pushing eighty years old and was ready to sell the shop and move on.


The other man was a fascinating fellow named June, a Cherokee redneck (they do exist) and professional horse guide who lives in the town of Bryson City, population approximately 2500. Bryson is one of the epicenters of the tourist boom, terminus of the Great Smoky Mountains Railway and fifteen minutes from two of the premier whitewater rivers on the east coast, the Tuckeseegee and the Nantahala. June didn't seem angry about the tourist invasion, just annoyed, because he liked how things were before and didn't like what they were changing into. He didn't bear tourists themselves any ill will; he got along with my wife and me just fine, and I was amused that he was sharing his thoughts about tourists with two tourists, two of the people who were guilty of helping to wreck his hometown.

When things are going well for us, we typically want it to stay that way forever. Think of your best set of friends, the feeling you got the first time you looked into the eyes of someone special, the smell of your first new car. We never want that to change. It's good, so we want it to stay good, just as good, for as long as we want it to keep making us feel good. A great Biblical example of this is Peter's reaction to the Transfiguration (Mark 9). He says, "This is awesome! Let me toss up a few tents, and we can set up our camp right here!" He wanted that joyful experience, that surpassing greatness, to be permanent. Who doesn't?

But the Transfiguration, like most of our truly great moments in life, is transitory. Everything changes, sometimes from bad to good, sometimes from good to bad, and it's the second of those I really want to take a look at. What do you do when you find yourself in Barbara or June's shoes, deeply discontent at the way things are going in your life and wishing they could just go back to being how good they used to be?

To answer that question, let me point out something about Barbara and June. Barbara owned a store, and to be quite honest - no offense here, Barb - it's the kind of kitschy place that probably would not have existed if not for massive amounts of tourist traffic. How many garden gnomes are you really going to sell in a town of a thousand people? June, likewise, was a professional horse guide, a job which you can only sustain if you have a constant stream of people coming to you who don't know how to ride horses. Although both of these folks were dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in their towns, although they longed for the way things used to be, they took control of the situation and spun things to their favor. They both had jobs they wouldn't have been able to have without the tourists who had ruined their old way of life.

When life takes a slide from great to mediocre, or worse, controlling the attitude is one of the hardest things to do. I have spent the last year and a half or so sulking about the friendships I lost when I moved from Dallas to Orlando back in August of 2009. Most of us react to that kind of loss in the same way I do, in the same way June and Barbara did: by lamenting the loss and pining for lost greatness. At a time like that, it's very difficult for us to motivate ourselves to be positive and seek the good; it's almost as if we'd just rather be in the dumps for a while. But what June and Barbara show us is that good is always there to be had. There is always a way to probe a bad situation and bring something good out of it; we know this for a fact because that is exactly what God does on a minute-to-minute basis for his people (Romans 8:28). The question is, how long do you want to sulk before you start benefiting from the change? How long are you planning on living in the past? For that matter, how long am I?

For Barbara and June, a change they didn't want opened doors for them to have careers they did want. I wonder how many changes in our lives, which we perceive as negative, could do that same thing for us if we were aware of the potential. You can't ever stop life from changing, and you can't stop some of those changes from sucking, but you can control your attitude and you can explore every change to discover what kind of blessings are hidden in it, waiting to be uncovered by someone who is expectantly looking to God rather than moping or self-pitying. Think about Barbara's and June's stories, and their dream jobs. Will you have the same kind of story?

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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