ucc:resources a clearinghouse for congregations of the united church of canada

This is a paper exercise that I do with young children. After seeking their thoughts on what love is and how we share our love, I ask them to consider that this sheet of paper represents all of the love they have inside them. I then tear the sheet in half and give half to one of the children. I then tear my paper in half again, asking the child to tear their paper also. Now we have four owners of pieces of paper. I then ask the children how they feel about this exercise and how this really represents how love is shared. After a brief discussion we discover that love is not represented by the size of the piece of paper. I then ask them to count the corners on their piece of paper – to no-one’s surprise they each have four corners. This gives me an opportunity to talk more widely about love – that we do not lose love when we give it away and no matter how many times one divides their love among others, they still retain their own store of love. I also like to note that love most often happens in small corners – between one, two or a few people.

But an amazing fact is that if each recipient of a piece of paper were to give one piece to a different person each time they tore it in half, within only 34 rounds of tearing everyone in the whole world would have a piece of it. Now it may be hard to love the whole world - but if we make a start, with one person at a time we can make a major difference.