As someone who travels a lot, usually 2-4 days a week in airports and on airplanes, I can testify to the stress of modern transportation. If the cramped seats don’t get you, the food they don’t serve will. Jet lag from pressurized cabins, smelly ill-kept bathrooms, junk food when you really want a salad, and people, people, people. People with disgusting tattoos, smelly bodies, unkempt hair, and unruly kids. Seats that won’t recline, the person behind me who won’t let it recline, the flight attendant in a cynical daze, the suitcase that falls out of the overhead bin, the overhead bin already full with someone’s overstuffed bag, noisy headphones blaring rap loud enough to pulverize the eardrums of the person next to me. Should I stop now? One more observation. The all-day stranded in an airport experience, watching the flight information screen constantly adding one more hour to my already-delayed departure.
But now, the wonderful state of Vermont has a balm for my pain, if I ever fly through Burlington (which I have). At taxpayers’ expense they are adding yoga rooms. The good liberal, progressive folks of the Northeast have provided a light, airy space with mossy green walls, bamboo floor, and yoga mats to stretch out my stress. Those who know me, also know I won’t be using the yoga room any time soon. Read my LARSON’S BOOK OF WORLD RELIGIONS, the chapter on “Yoga,” if you wonder why.
Now in addition to all the indignities I described above, travelers to and from Vermont can add a few demons for the trip as they tune their chakras before takeoff. This latest invasion of Eastern, mystical occultism is one more sign of our post-biblical culture. In times past, the public servants of Vermont would have placed a chapel for prayer and meditation instead of a yoga room. Sadly, as a culture we put more value on a demonic discipline than we do Christian contemplation.
