“This is a song to take you homewards, This is a song to break your heart to” sing the Manic Street Preachers in my IPod, as I head down from Alexandria to Cairo on the 08.00 am 904 express train.

And this is my trip homewards, earlier than originally planned, but later than now hoped for, and so each mile feels long, and each hour too long, and I want this song to take me homewards through Cairo, Istanbul, Manchester and Sheffield to home.

But for these miles I look out of the window of this drafty, rickety, clanking, barely functioning train at a song to break your heart to.

All seems to be dirt, rubbish, and poverty along the tracks. How do we produce so much dirt, so much rubbish, so much poverty? In the midst of fields, plastic everywhere, going nowhere, just accumulating, digging its way into the ground together with rusting metal, decaying concrete, crumbling brick, mixed with rags, gathered rotting wood, cardboard and even more plastic. A landscape of brown with hints of plastic colour. But there seems to be some pickings for the egrets in amongst it all.

We run alongside a seemingly makeshift highway, lumps taken out, with a million cars and buses, and trucks, and lorries, and motorcycles; all pumping out more brown as they speed down to Cairo, together on the highway of course with donkeys dragging carts, all burdened with too much, overfull, packed, carrying more plastic, and bricks, and concrete, and wood, and chickens, and a thousand thousand Pepsi’s on the road who together shout ‘live for now!’ in bold English. Yes, that’s the answer…..

And out of the grimy window of the 904 people clinging on the edge in poorly built houses, often huts really, pushing out in small shallow blue boats onto another tributary of a sewer like Nile, eking out another caught meal of 2 small fish and a few loaves. Aged before their time, with deep lines, looking like dirt themselves today. All brown after the rain, which has turned dust into cloying paste clinging to shoes and clothes. They barely look up as we clank by, too busy pushing and pulling and carrying and cutting. Although the children play in the newly formed pools and sometimes wave. The dirt poor. Rubbish of the world. Going nowhere. Just accumulating. Digging in. Living off the pickings. Living for now. Is there any other way to live in this brown?

A rather more personal blog today on the theme of distance and closeness.

Well, a strange 48 hours with news from home that my mum was rushed into hospital over the weekend, and had an operation to remove a blood clot In her arm. The usual Shakespearian storyline to the events, which will all become part of family folklore in the future, and grow in the telling, but the family all kicked into action, and my sisters are being brilliant. Thankfully after an anxious couple of days, the news is better, and the doctor is talking about a return home shortly. Then the work of supporting and caring really begins.

Meanwhile, I am in Cairo, feeling such a distance away, and currently re-arranging everything to get back home this week.

So, initial feelings of shock and helplessness, and being out of touch with those I am closest to in life. Where to be, and what to do type questions, together with a sense of turmoil and some isolation, even whilst being amongst my friends and partners here in Egypt who are being brilliant, prayerful and supportive. My head in Egypt, my heart in Northallerton, UK.

Strange how you can be physically at such a distance, and feel so emotionally close and attached. Maybe the distance makes it even more of a connection….I know I am feeling very much the son and the brother at the moment which outweigh any other roles I have in life. I feel to be in the Northallerton house even whilst walking the Cairo streets. Those who know me well know that I am an emotional being, whether it be outraged by injustice and poverty, in agony about my poorly performing football team (!), elated by live theatre, bursting with pride about my students. Not ashamed to say that it is always close to the surface. It certainly is now, for the most important of things to me In life.

Thankfully, in the middle of all this I have felt God close too. Maybe the sense of helplessness and isolation has made that even more real too. Prayers offered by Cairo based British ex-pats, Egyptian friends and Sudanese refugees have all reminded me that God is also close to me, and my family, and that He is in control. Funny how you sometimes have to go some distance and be in a vulnerable place to be reminded of the reality of the things you believe in.

If you are a praying type, then I would appreciate your prayers for my family, and if you have a spare one, for me too and for the change of arrangements.

Keep close, and hopefully some of this reflection is helpful to you too.

As the world mourns the loss of the great man Nelson Mandela, it made me think about other significant people I admire who had left a mark for good in the 20th century. And so, a trinity of quotes from a holy trinity of ‘M’……on a theme dear to my heart……

‘Madiba’ Nelson Mandela:

A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is people who have made poverty and tolerated poverty, and it is people who will overcome it. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

‘Mother’ Theresa of Calcutta:

At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”

We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.

A life not lived for others is not a life.

‘Mahatma’ Mohandas Ghandi:

It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

In a gentle way you can shake the world.

Sadly I didn’t study Latin at school. I am sure it would have been helpful on occasions…singing the prayers at Taize with a bit more understanding for example, but last night would have been useful too. All Saint’s Cathedral, Cairo welcomed the Cairo Choral Society and Festival Orchestra who presented as the highlight of the evening J.S. Bach’s ‘Magnificat in D’. Brilliant, soaring, moving music with Chorus and Soloists all going for it in the vast expanse of the Cathedral. Big applause at the end, bouquets for the soloists (quite rightly the men as well as the women!), everyone leaving into the Cairo night saying ‘what a wonderful evening, everyone did so well’. And it was, and they did.

Eeer, but what did they sing? Thankfully the words were all there for non Latin scholars like me. Words of St. Luke, chapter 1, verses 46-55….’My soul magnifies The Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…….’ so starts pregnant Mary as she explodes with praise when meeting with her cousin Elizabeth. Soaring words…..

But the Magnificat carries a prophetic punch. Not just any song of praise, it carries the same kingdom impact as Jesus’ later words from Isaiah in the synagogue….. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me……’. Mary magnifies The Lord God by declaring prophetically what God in Jesus is all about. ‘He has shown strength with his arm, and scattered the haughty in the imagination of their hearts. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly on high. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.’ The haughty, mighty and rich of the world will be scattered, cast down and emptied. But the lowly and hungry of the world who need strength for the day will be raised and fed. This is what is coming in the advent of Jesus.

I love my Bach as much as the next man…and felt lifted by the music. The ‘Magnificat in D’ is often sung before Christmas. ‘Mary’s song’ is recited in churches week by week. But it’s all about knowing what it means…..in any language…..and interesting to read it again in the context of seeing some of the street poverty in Egypt, visiting Kanater prison, and being aware of the Sudanese and Syrian refugees lining up for food and clothing just around the corner.