The Conversation of a Lifetime

  

What Do You Run For?

  Remember Chariots of Fire and the conversation between Eric Liddell and the Olympic Committee?  Liddell wouldn’t run on the Sabbath because he ran for the God of the Sabbath and the principle to rest in God’s honor.  Nobody on the committee gets it—expect the Duke of Sutherland.  If they had talked Liddell into running by disavowing his reason for being a runner—then they would have destroyed him as a runner.  Where does our passion for life come from?  When we align ourselves with it, as many athletes say, we get into the “zone” where we are at our best.  Life surges through us like an electrical current and everything fires at once.  Odds are that when life looses the get up and go, we’ve become separated from the real source of our lives.  

Lord Cadogan: Don't be impertinent, Liddell!

Eric Liddell: The impertinence lies, sir, with those who seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs!

Lord Cadogan: Hear, hear. In my day it was King first and God after.

Duke of Sutherland: Yes, and the War To End Wars bitterly proved your point!

Eric Liddell: God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way.

HRH Edward, Prince of Wales: There are times when we are asked to make sacrifices in the name of that loyalty. And without them our allegiance is worthless. As I see it, for you, this is such a time.

Eric Liddell: Sir, God knows I love my country. But I can't make that sacrifice.

Lord Cadogan: That's a matter for the committee!

Lord Birkenhead: We *are* the committee.

Duke of Sutherland: A sticky moment, George.

Lord Birkenhead: Thank God for Lindsay. I thought the lad had us beaten.

Duke of Sutherland: He did have us beaten, and thank God he did.

Lord Birkenhead: I don't quite follow you.

Duke of Sutherland: The "lad", as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.

Lord Birkenhead: For his country's sake, yes.

Lord Birkenhead: No sake is worth that, Effie, least of all a guilty national pride.