How to Outrun a Deer

Imagine hunting a deer by simply running after it until it drops dead of exhaustion! The incredible Tarahumara Indians – the world’s fastest and most indefatigable runners – do just that in the rugged mountains of southern Mexico. Swilling bat blood with dried turtle meat, trainees are kept awake by deer-hoof rattles at their belts, pursuing wild horses on foot for as long as three days. Children, kicking wooden balls over a sixty-mile course, engage in foot races lasting six to eight hours. A nonstop run of one hundred seventy miles is a typical adult practice session. Tribal messengers, pacesetters that make Olympic athletes look like cronies, run the narrow steep mountain trails from Guazapares to Chihuahua and back in five days - a distance of over six hundred miles!

Such prodigious feats of endurance are, of course, beyond the physical capacity of most of us. But spiritually, with grace-nourishment our soul-capacity is even more amazing. While we “run…to get the prize, …a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor 9:24-25), remember, “the race is not to the swift” (Eccl 911), but to those who persevere. This prize goes only to those who “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and…run with perseverance the race” (Heb 12:1).

This excerpt is from the book One-Minute Meditations for Busy People, by John H. Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/video recordings can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408 or www.Catholicbooks.net