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Good morning. Sometimes, I travel to work by train. I know this is a sensitive subject for many people in England coping with the new timetabling arrangements introduced on 20th May. How frustrating it must be to have this precisely choreographed part of the day disrupted, and doubly so when the new arrangements don’t appear to work as well as the old ones.

When the system works however – which we hope it soon will, being a regular season ticket commuter introduces a whole new perspective on community. There is the man who every morning sits at the back of the carriage reading the paper. He always carries a brown leather-backed notebook in which he scribbles from time to time. What is he writing? Notes to self as they occur to him? The first chapter of his novel? And here comes Gordon who works near the university for an IT company, and who always likes to chat about his children, and occasionally comes to our church. And there is that young lady, so painfully thin, who never makes eye contact but holds her phone in front of her as securely as if it were a lifeline, which perhaps it is. What stories lie behind these faces?

And then I wonder – what must these folks think of me? Ah, here he comes. That tall shambling bloke with the worn out computer bag. Does he not know that he has a button missing from his coat? He stares out the window, and looks a bit vacant. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder what he does…

Perhaps the time has come to do that most un-British of things, and actually say hello to my fellow travellers.

May God bless you on your journey today. Amen.