The Spirit That Soars
As television stations last weekend showed videotape of the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrating upon reentry, I, like every American, was deeply saddened by the tragedy. My heart and prayers go out to the families and the NASA crews that are responsible for sending our astronauts into the final frontier.
But as the same footage was endlessly rebroadcast, I couldn't help but stare at the screen in awe and surprise � not at the magnitude of the accident � but at the spirit that drives such men and women to reach for the stars in the first place.
It is a spirit that has characterized the people of this nation from the days long before the United States of America was a country. It is a spirit that is defined by a longing for adventure, a quest for knowledge, a yearning to be free from that which binds us, and a rugged individuality that says �I will live life my way, not yours.�
This spirit, this distinctly American spirit, was first found in the hardy souls who braved months of unpredictable weather and possible death on the Atlantic Ocean to found the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607. New people in a new land, they faced impossible odds and unknown dangers, but still they came and the few who survived untoward hardship went on to establish what would become the world's greatest country.
The settlers of Jamestown were followed by many others seeking religious freedom, fleeing debt collectors, or those who simply wanted to start life over again in a new place.
They all shared one thing in common, however, a fierce independent spirit that refused to be hemmed in by the safe routines of society.
The American spirit would be set loose upon the world by the American Revolution. Never before in the history of mankind had a colony tried, let alone succeeded, in breaking away from the mother country. But Americans refused to be corralled. We were our own people, with our own way of life, and we would live that life our way, not the king's way.
This spirit and desire for freedom would literally transform the world for the next 227 years.
Perhaps no better example exists of the indomitable American spirit than the Corps of Discovery, the 1803 expedition led by Meriwether Lewis & William Clark. With a band of 42 men, later joined by a French fur trader and his Indian wife, these courageous adventurers set out to explore and map a new route to the Pacific Ocean.
They ventured into a land never before seen by European settlers and they paid little heed to the potential dangers. This trip was not just about finding a new route to the sea, it also was a science project that sought to describe and document plants, animals, insects, and other creations never before catalogued or studied.
For the time, it was a grand quest to expand human knowledge.
Today, our quest for knowledge takes us not to the expansive plains and soaring mountains of the American west, but into the sky and through the outer reaches of our atmosphere into the vacuum of space.
While thousands of settlers looking for a new future followed wagon trails west into the American heartland, today's road to the future rises above the marshlands of Florida. This trail is marked not by wheel ruts in the soil, but by a column of fire and smoke that stretches for miles into the sky only to disappear with the wind. At the top of that fiery display are a few brave and courageous souls strapped to the sides of the most powerful rockets ever built.
Many people have difficulty understanding why others willingly incur the risks of space flight. But I believe that those who dedicate their lives to reaching for the planets and stars beyond our Earth are simply following in the best tradition of what it means to be an American. They are willing to push the limits, and risk death if necessary, to advance our knowledge, understanding and appreciation of God's incredible universe.
So while our nation continues to mourn the loss of our astronauts, and we grieve for the families left behind, let us also recognize and celebrate the American spirit that is so bravely displayed every time a rocket pierces the bright blue sky.
Today we shed tears for the lost, but tomorrow we will continue that uniquely American quest to explore that which is beyond our grasp and understanding and to break free from that which holds us back.
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