IT’S TIME TO TURN THIS PLANE AROUND

It would have been an embarrassment with the mistake duplicated hundreds of thousands of times as it ubiquitously blanketed our state. If any state should have known what was correct, it was ours. Thankfully, somebody caught it but only after our governor had unveiled it: A new version of our state’s license plate had been designed, approved, and was about to be released. Thirty-five thousand had already been produced. Labeled, “Sunrise in Ohio,” it depicts a colorful landscape blend of urban and bucolic portraying what Ohio has to offer—major cities, multiple rivers, fertile fields, beautiful hills, and stately trees. A boy swinging on a tree swing with his dog standing nearby adds the element of prospect, promise, and peace—this is a place to raise a family. Every detail--coloration, imagery, placement of details, and readability of letters--had been fastidiously fussed over and approved. Still, something was drastically wrong. Heralding Ohio’s unique place in history, across the top of the scene, above a rising sun, is the Wright brothers’ Flyer I, pulling a banner reading “Birthplace of Aviation.” An emblem of our state’s shape and its name is centered on and superimposed over the banner. What was the mistake? The airplane was headed in the wrong direction. The banner was stretched out in the air from left to right. But the Wright’s plane, which is depicted towing it, has the banner attached to its front and is flying towards it. The mistake is easy to make. The first airplane had its wings towards the rear and what has the appearance of a tail on modern planes on its very front. Designers of the license plate, thus, positioned the plane headed in the wrong direction. Yes, it was a mistake easy to make, but Ohio shouldn’t have. Ohio should have known. Ohio is the birthplace of flight. North Carolina often gets and takes the credit. Its license plate, “First in Flight,” while technically accurate, is misleading. The Wright brothers designed and built the first airplane in their bicycle shop here in Dayton, OH. For its first flight, they only shipped it to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, because of the ideal, constant wind there was conducive for test flights. No, Ohio has a rightful claim for the first flight--had there been no Ohio, there’d been no North Carolina. Therefore, Ohio should have known better. Before reading the news article, something was nagging me about the license plate. I knew something was wrong. Suddenly, it hit me, the plane was headed in the wrong direction. How did I know? I have read quite a lot on the Wright brothers and the birth of flight. I’ve lived within a few miles of where the Wright brothers built that plane. Everywhere there are reminders of their invention. The National Museum of the US Airforce is located here. There and in other area museums I have often seen photos, later versions, or replicas of the first plane. Looking at these, one cannot but be impressed that the plane looks all backward front to back compared to a modern one. See, my knowing the plane was headed in the wrong direction came from being familiar with the history having read of the plane and seen the photos, actual later versions, and replicas of it. So much in America is headed in the wrong direction. So much in the home. So much in the church. So much in individuals’ lives. But too many folks are oblivious to it. How could they not see things are headed in the wrong direction? Why are Americans from the person on the street to the professor in the classroom to the legislator in Congress to the chief executive of our nation getting so many things so wrong? Why are they headed and heading things in the wrong direction? Why? They don’t know or ignore the history. Many leaders truly don’t know our country’s history. If they know any history about our country, it is a revisionist history, or, worse, a purposely contorted, narrative-driven spin on our history. If they knew the history, they’d head our country in a different direction. The same is true for the church. Too many of today’s church leaders and followers do not know the church’s history. And, I do not mean general church history through the centuries. I mean the history of its founding by Christ and the Apostles. I mean what is recounted in Scripture. No wonder churches are pointed in the wrong direction. Government, church, family, individuals, each of these are headed in the wrong direction because of not knowing the history. A government is headed towards socialism when history has shown it never works. Society is headed towards the demise of the nuclear family when history has shown this always destroys society. The church is heading towards pluralism-universalism, kingdom now-ism, social-issue orientation when history shows doing so has always led to its spiritual death. Individuals choose paths of greed, lust, selfishness, drugs, etc., when history is replete with anecdotal and aggregate data revealing the certain ruin and destruction from doing so. Worse than not knowing the history is knowing it but having the arrogance that “with me, things will be different.” I’m the anomaly. Socialism, although history shows it never has, would work if I and mine implemented it. The breakdown of the family has always led to the decay of society, but the society I conceive would be better if the family was replaced with government. Adultery, history has shown, has always been ruinous and destructive, but it will be different for me. So, what about our license plate? Our state officials once enlightened to the flying-in-the-wrong-direction plane simply shrugged their shoulders and said, “Oh, well. It looks right to us. The license plate looks really sharp. It would take too much time, money, and effort to change it,” and left it as it was. Of course, not. They fixed the mistake. They turned the plane around. Imagine, the Wright flyer left facing the wrong way. If in real-time, it would have overtaken the collapsing banner which wrapping itself around the plane would have become entangled in the plane’s engine, gears, and steering apparatus. It would have crashed! Heading in the wrong direction would have wrecked the plane. Whether your personal life or spiritual life, whether, church, home, or country, if headed in the wrong direction, there will be a crash. It’s time to turn this plane around. --Pastor Clifford Hurst