In the movie "Forrest Gump" Forrest takes off running one morning and he runs for over 3 years, just running back and forth across the country. We know he is running because of what has happened between him and the girl that he loves, Jenny. But for Forrest and soon the many others who are running with him they don't know why he is running and then one day in the middle of nowhere Forrest stops running. That right just stops and turns around to go home. How many of us are running with no place to go? Or are we running but we don't know where we have come from or where we are going? .
Just recently I saw a new commercial for New Balance. In it a is woman running up a set of stairs along a cliff and when she gets to the top she stops to pick up a piece of candy. Can you imagine running that hard for something as inconsequential as apiece of candy? When we first think about running hard, most of us are more likely to run hard away from something - something dangerous or scary.
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I read in the paper this week that mountain lions are back in Iowa. This means that increasingly people will encounter them, even though mountain lions are very reclusive and hunt mostly at night. These 150-pound cats are thunderously strong, agile and speedy. Even though they do not dine normally on humans, any carnivore that can't tell the difference between a child and a chip monk is dangerous. So, I was pleased that the Register gave us some advice on what to do if you should happen to encounter one in the woods. DO NOT RUN! Face the critter and puff yourself up to look as big as possible, pick up any children in the area and speak to the cat as you would to a stray dog. It seems to me that if ever there were a reason to run like crazy, meeting a mountain lion would be one of them. But noooo. Do not run - they say! Right! Similar advice, by the way, applies when meeting bears, especially grizzly bears.