The Cemetery at Gatlinburg

It's odd, sometimes, where a new thought can strike you.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is not the place where you would expect to have an epiphany, but I noticed something there once while I was eating lunch at a restaurant on a balcony overlooking the street.

The city of Gatlinburg is a thriving combination of free enterprise and hillbilly chic - a city built on the notion that people will drive for hours to spend lots of money for Elvis memorabilia, a glimpse at the famous Batmobile of the 1960s TV series, a dazzling collection of holographs, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! displays, a miniature golf-course with “fifty live bunnies running loose on the course,” video arcades, air-brush T-shirts, and Smoky Mountain bric-a-brac shops by the dozen. The atmosphere of the city’s main drag is so carnival-like that an ordinary drug-store in the middle of town seems like a relic from another time and place.

I was eating lunch on a balcony overlooking the busy main avenue of the city, watching pedestrians streaming down both sides of the street, deciding which attractions and shops they wanted to visit.

As my gaze wandered over the sight, I was startled to notice a cemetery on a grassy hill behind the row of shops across the street. Invisible to everyone below me, the sunny little graveyard stood silent vigil over the shoppers, waiting patiently for each in his turn to leave the busy avenue and return to the dust.

The two images were a study in jarring contrast: the quiet, grassy hillside with its little headstones serving as an understated reminder of our common, inevitable Destiny . . . the street below thronging with life, enthusiasm, and imagination. Somehow, the sight of the graveyard gave a sense of ludicrous irrelevance to all of the frantic activity below.

I did not come away from that experience with the sense that the Gatlinburg experiences of our lives are somehow immoral or even that they are wasteful and frivolous. But I did decide that whatever I do in Gatlinburg ought to make sense not just from where I stand now, here on the street, but also from the long view on the hill as well. The Gatlinburg cemetery was a warning against short-sightedness.

In Jesus’ parable, the rich farmer is condemned not because he had a bumper crop and built new barns, but because he was so very short-sighted. “Thou fool, this day shall thy soul be required of thee.” In all his calculations, the wealthy landowner failed to take into account his own mortality. His viewpoint was limited to his immediate prospects, and he did not notice the yawning mouth of the grave beneath his next step.

It is, of course, equally short-sighted to live in the graveyard. We have all contemplated how we might spend this day if it were our last on earth, but we know we cannot really spend each day in such a mindset (perpetually saying farewell to loved ones, never going to school or to work). Our awkward dilemma is that we must invest our mound of minutes simultaneously as if each were the final moment (because it well could be) but also as if we had thousands left to spend (because we might).

Our Assignment is to occupy each moment so that if our Summons should come, we might lay down our work or our play and turn to meet our Maker without regret.

God give us wisdom to remember the view from the hill even while we walk the streets.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor