This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore

Buckingham Palace has announced that the Royal Train will be taken out of service by 2027. This cost-saving measure ends more than 150 years of tradition. We’re moving on.

I was reminded of Elton John’s beautiful song ‘This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore’. He describes how love, fame, riches and a celebrity life style have only brought tears and pain. Disillusioned, he’s moving on, to find something deeper, more meaningful.

In July’s ‘Premier Christianity’ Bear Grylls describes how we naturally look for the convenient, the easy, the comfortable. However:

‘All the good stuff in life is on the other side of doubt, struggle, fear, pain and discomfort. You’ve got to push through that stuff…’

‘Dealing with hard times is a muscle that has to be built, just like that bicep in the gym. How do you build it? You keep facing it. You don’t run from it. You do difficult things. You do the awkward, the uncomfortable – little things every day. That builds our resilience.’

This difficulty-avoidance train don’t stop here anymore.  

I was reading about the Pope. One of his ancient titles was ‘Pontifex Maximus’ – hence the pope is the ‘Pontiff’. Literally the word pontiff means bridge-builder.

Churches have always been good at appointing gate-keepers that keep out the different, the difficult, the disagree-ers; they only allow in those like us. Bridge-builders, however  construct bridges across deep valleys, enabling access for all.

This difference-exclusion train don’t stop here anymore.

This morning I read: ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

Jeremiah is speaking to fellow Jews, forced to exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, who are asking their God to bring an immediate rescue from their suffering.

Jeremiah says that there’s to be no instant solution to their problems, no immediate freedom. But there was a plan. They were to entrust their future to their God.

This demanding-escape train don’t stop here anymore.