21st September 2025
Just One Thing...
The late Dr Michael Mosley became famous for his podcast "Just One Thing", which grew into a book of the same name. The idea behind the show was simple: each week, he focused on one simple action listeners could take to improve their mental, physical and/or emotional health. It might be as easy as drinking a glass of water before breakfast - or as challenging (for me, anyway!) as taking a cold rather than a warm shower.
As we continue to think about creation care during this season, we may well find ourselves coming up against the question: but what's the point? What can I do, in my small life here in Penge, that can be of any use towards such a massive global problem? Perhaps the "just one thing" approach might be helpful here. None of us can solve every problem, but all of us can do something. I'm reminded of Abraham and his response to God's call in Genesis 12. Abraham didn't go from Haran to Canaan in a single step. He journeyed, the writer of Genesis tells us "by stages". At each stage, recognising the presence of God, he built an altar and worshipped; then, we imagine at God's direction, he moved onwards.
Like Abraham, we are called to be pilgrims, journeying "by stages" towards the God who in Jesus calls us to himself. Like Abraham, we don't get everything right and we can't solve everything that is wrong. But maybe we can listen, look and respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit at the place we are in now. Maybe we can take the one step, do the one thing that will help us draw closer to God in this moment. What that one thing might be will vary for each of us. But the choice to take the next step, begin the next stage of the journey, and recognise the presence of God in the place we have got to, indicates our intention, helps us find a direction of travel.
At a meeting of clergy from across the Diocese earlier this week, we thought about what repentance can look like. Often we see repentance as a complete and sudden change - and this can sometimes be the case. But what if repentance was also about direction of travel? What if we heard God's voice calling us to turn around from the prevailing culture that encourages us to consume more and more and destroys the earth in the process, towards a different way of living? What if we saw our one thing less as a drop in the ocean of a problem far too big for any of us to solve and more as a taking a step towards our loving Creator, and towards his heart of love for the world?
There's a story of a boy on the beach, throwing stranded starfish back into the sea. A cynical passer-by says "Why bother? You'll never save them all." The boy calmly threw the next starfish into the sea before replying "Well, I've saved this one."
