head turner

So at the gym they have four t.v.s in front of the exercise bicycles and treadmills.  From right to left they are CBC, TSN, MTV, and something to do with shopping, I think.  So I'm on the treadmill the other day, trying to read the closed caption on TSN so I can see who won which football game (that would be NFL, real football, but that's another post another day).  As I watch, I realize that the (MTV) screen beside mine has some form of fleshly gyration that, though I am still interested in the football games, catches my eye.  I glance to the right, simultaneously disgusted and intrigued, and find a few seconds goes by before I return to TSN.  What was that? Not just on the screen, but what is it in us that has us turn our heads to stuff we didn't want but got tricked into thinking we wanted?  Then I noticed, I wasn't alone on this one.  In glancing at other treadmillers and exercyclers, I notice a common theme -- heads turned to the right.
I laugh inside.  Maybe a bunch of chiropractors around town are going to be having a conversation like this with their patients over the next few days, "Not sure why you have a stiff neck, especially with all the exercise you've been getting on the treadmill."
And then, instead of laughing inside, it hits me in the gut.  There are distractions all over this town.  And they don't just twist and disorient spinal columns but entire lives.
Suddenly, bits of the Book I heard when I was a young boy in Burlington are making sense, all about keeping on the straight and narrow, not straying off the path, and so on.
Those pleas from the Desire weren't meant to block our joy, just to help us keep running straight.
And not just on the treadmill, either.