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Good morning. Sometimes I take myself on a short flight of fancy and imagine the proverbial little green man, arriving from space, landing somewhere near me.Ìý His mission is to take a snapshot of the earth and it’s inhabitants, and to report back.Ìý <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

What sort of planet is it, what problems does it have?Ìý How do the people deal with the problems?

So our little alien, eavesdrops, unseen, on conversations, trawls through social media, and soaks up popular culture and finds

A people who talk endlessly about Social problems, economic problems, but with few suggestions or solutions.

Perhaps our little alien is being a little harsh- what can any of us do, to solve world poverty, redress climate change, bring society to a place of tolerance and respect, and bring about world peace?Ìý

An old man came across a small boy at the seashore.Ìý The boy was stopping every so often to bend down, pick up an object, and throw it into the sea. ‘May I ask what you’re doing?’ the old man asked.Ìý

‘Throwing these starfish back into the ocean,’ the boy explained.Ìý ‘They’ve been washed up, and can’t get back by themselves’ and the old man said ‘ But there must be tens of thousands of starfish here.ÌýÌý I’m afraid you won’t be able to make much of a difference’.

The boy picked up yet another starfish, threw it as far as he could into the ocean and said with a smile, ‘It made a difference to that one’.
In a world and a society with huge problems, its easy to be negative, hard to be imagine how we can make a difference.

When the challenges seem huge, think smallÌý - we can change a small part of it, for someone.Ìý Ìý

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God of the mountain and the mustard seed, give us the courage to use what we have, to make a difference wherever you lead us today. Help us to change the world, one starfish at a time, Amen.

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