Some of the winter mornings in school were really cold. There was snow on the ground, the wind whistled under the front door and the singled glazed, large windows made absolutely no effort to keep in what little heat had been established. The only source of warmth in the whole classroom was supplied by a pot bellied stove that sat against the left wall, surrounded by a fire guard taller than any of the junior pupils and was constantly fed with coke from a long bucket that had handles down the side. At times the red glow on the walls of the beast indicated that the level of heat was more than it could bear but some of us would have been happy to unburden it as we sat shivering in the outlying districts of the room. Of course it depended where you were sitting in the classroom as to how much effect the stove had on your ability to perform simple tasks and to think coherently. Those closest, in the tropics, had small drops of sweat settling on their foreheads, others in the temperate middle of the room were pleasantly comfortable while a few in outer Siberia could only take the testimony of far off friends tat the red glow was actually heat. But in truth, the warmest thing in the whole room, apart from the stove itself and possibly the headmaster, was the crate of previously half frozen milk that had been nestled up against the fire guard since early morning and which hardly chilled the back of the throat at break time. Oil? Never heard of it in those days, except for the little tin of 3 in 1 with the long spout that dad used for a variety of purposes on the farm, but mostly for the lawnmower. Yes, there was also an old gallon tin lying on a shelf in the garage but it seemed to have been there for years so its use was generally not important to the smooth running of things. As for heating the house, that job was left entirely in the hands of the old Wellstood cooker in the kitchen that ate coal for fun and poured out any heat that mum hadn't used for cooking. When the fire door was open the heat was truly breathtaking and many winter evenings we would all congregate in the kitchen and enjoy its warmth. The trouble was that it didn't heat the rest of the house so every other room was completely dependent on the external temperature and on a cold night it was easy to see your breath. So I lived through most of my teens knowing that the only radiators at home were in the front of dad's Morris Oxford and his Ferguson tractor. But eventually, as the old cooker began to die a slow death, they took the plunge, installed a new model and with it, in came the radiators and the oil pipeline, direct from the oil rig. Suddenly everywhere was warm and there was no longer any need to race from bathroom to bedroom in order to have created enough heat to survive the night. So I know exactly what it is to not be dependent on oil and also the change that it can bring to a life.
But the coveted liquid is now more scarce than ever and certainly more expensive and now that we have the hitherto unheard of situation where oil is being stolen from tanks at homes, has it become more important than money itself? Isn't it strange that in a world where excess and lavishness seem to dominate our media reports, so many can no longer afford to keep themselves warm. And as the situation snowballs, all types of oil driven transport have become so much more expensive, affecting the price of our holidays, our electricity,our groceries, our journeys to work and for some, their businesses. So why is it so important? Simply because oil doesn't just have on job. Yes we use forms of it to heat our homes, to power our cars, lorries and aeroplanes and to lubricate machines but it's equally important in its role as a raw material for plastics production, in fertilisers and additives and there just isn't enough to go around. But the most wonderful thing about oil is that, according to scientists, it has been formed from the dead bodies of microscopic animals and plants over a very long period. Isn't that amazing that our Creator had another use for all those little things long after they had died. It makes me think that God really does have a plan for each of us, not just to go to heaven and worship Him when we die physically, but more importantly when we put our faith in Him as Saviour and die to ourselves, He creates something completely new that is far better than the lives we were living before. Paul reiterates this sentiment in Philippians when he says 'For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.' And also in his letter to the Corinthian church he writes, 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.'
To be honest, school as a kid wasn't that cold at all, though home was pretty chilly. But a few million dead animals and plants made a difference. In God's hands we can make a bigger impact..
