Love is a magic key that opens the door to happiness. Just locking up a lot of love in your heart is of no use to anyone. To open the door of happiness, you must put the key of love into a keyhole of action and turn it. This is called “love in action”. Love in action is showing your love for others by acts of kindness and helpfulness. When you give your love to those around you, you get a lovely feeling inside. The person you love is also happy.

There are many ways to show your love to others. There are many forms of service that you can do.

You can help at home in many ways – do some of your work on your own, help your parents, brothers, sisters in little things.

You can show your love for your school by doing your classwork and extra-curricular activities well, and being obedient to your teachers, by keeping your class and school clean and also not damaging the school articles.

Service to the poor is a wonderful way for you to show your love to them. There are hundreds of people for whom life is a daily struggle because of handicaps, illness or poverty.

Love in action also means not troubling or disturbing others. It means speaking softly, politely to others and behaving in a way that pleases others.

John Appleseed is remembered all over America for his service to nature. He spent many years of his life sowing apple seeds in large parts of America. These grew into huge apple orchards and gave the people there much wealth. The orchards also made the plains rich and beautiful.

Chipco movement – When traders began to cut down trees without any thought of the future, the people in the area embraced the trees to prevent them from being cut down. They even stayed up all night to guard their life-giving trees.

Story

Sharing with Love

Rory had been listening to the teacher as she was talking about doing service for poor children. As it was soon approaching Christmas, the teacher suggested that they might have a toy collection as a project.

Rory decided that he too would be kind and bring in a toy for the poor children’s collection. One by one, Rory went through his toys that afternoon. There was his favourite game and he thought, “I cannot give this away. I play with it all the time and I really love it.” One by one Rory felt that he could not part with the things, he loved. Finally, he came upon an old, broken-down truck that he had for many years. “Oh, I’ll bring this in,” he thought. “Those poor children don’t have anything, so I am sure they’ll be pleased with this. After all, it might be old, but it still works.”

So, very pleased with himself, Rory set out for school the very next day. In a bag was his old truck, ready to be given to the teacher. On his way to school, he met Jimmy and Rory was quick to tell him that he had looked through his toys and was bringing one to school for the poor children. Jimmy listened quietly and said, “I have something too.”

After some lessons had been taught, the teacher said, “Has anyone brought toys for our Christmas collection?”

Many hands went up, among them Rory’s. The teacher called up the children, one at a time. She showed the class each of the toys as they were given. Rory began to get nervous. “Every toy looks almost brand new,” he thought.

Jimmy too got up and showed the class a beautiful truck, saying that he had currently received it as a gift but felt that it was his way of sharing. On seeing all this Rory really felt ashamed.

Then Rory could hear the teacher saying, “Rory, you had your hand up. Would you like to bring up your gift now?”

Rory turned red, began to shutter, “I … uh, I …. Thought I had it, but I must have left it home. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

That afternoon, at home, Rory gave a lot of thought to what had happened in school. He realized that the pleasure of giving, the real part of sharing, was to give something you loved so that others could enjoy it too. So, gently and lovingly, after taking permission from his parents, Rory took his favourite game, wrapped it in lovely paper with a cute Santa Claus on top, ready to bring it to school the next day.

Rory fell asleep that night with a sweet smile upon his lips

Song

Peace, love , joy

I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul (2)
I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean
I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul (2)
I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain
I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul
I’ve got peace, love and joy like a river,
I’ve got peace , love and joy like a river
I’ve peace, love and joy like a river in my soul