Laurel Salton Clark

As minister of Laurel Clark's home church, I'd like to thank you on behalf of her family and Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church, for being here tonight to honor this brave, passionate, loving Racinian.

As many of you know, Racine was not the only place Laurel lived. She was born in Ames, Iowa and lived in New York, and Missouri, and New Mexico and studied in Madison and eventually settled in Texas. The place she considered home... was Racine. This is where her roots were. This is what she listed as her home town in her official NASA biography. This is where she worked as a teenager at the McDonald's on Douglas Avenue. This is where she came back to be married in 1991. And when she was traveling over the earth in the space shuttle, although she looked longingly at Mount Fuji in Japan (which she had climbed some years before) and saw the plains of Africa and the dunes of Cape Horn and watched to Aurora Australis lighting up the horizon with the city glow of Australia below, and the crescent moon setting over the rim of the earth, she also looked for us.

She wrote in her last email from space: "Magically, the very first day we flew over Lake Michigan and I saw Wind Point clearly, I haven't been so lucky since."

She also carried a Horlick High School pendant with her on board the space shuttle. Horlick is where she was a member of the student council and forensics team and where she graduated from in 1979. In fact, Horlick had been planning to invite her back next year to be keynote speaker for their 75th anniversary.

After high school, Laurel went to Madison and majored in zoology - intending to become a veterinarian (she had always loved animals, being the one the family cat liked to sleep with). But she ended up studying medicine through the Navy and became a surgeon instead.

Laurel was an enthusiastic, passionate person, symbolized perhaps in the bright colored clothes she like to wear when not in uniform, earning her the nickname "Floral Laurel." As talented as she was, she was never conceited; as high as she traveled, she was still down-to-earth; as accomplished as she was, she still valued friends and family above all.

Where others might have bragged about their abilities, Laurel realized how lucky she was and said, "I feel blessed. I feel blessed to be here in space, representing our county and carrying out the research of scientists around the world."

She was also an adventurous and active person, whether it was scuba diving or skydiving, mountain hiking or mountain biking, climbing rocks or spewing volcanoes; and even enduring a stint in Siberia with her fellow astronauts in training.

She explored the seas - diving with the Navy Seals and conducting medical evacuations from submarines off Scotland; and the skies - flying aboard the Marine attack squadron of the year as a flight surgeon; and finally beyond the sky's horizon, aboard the space shuttle Columbia. As her brother Dan, who still lives in the area and teaches Sunday School at our church - as he put it: "Laurel was never one these people who say, 'Okay, I found what I want to do' - it was always 'what's the next challenge?' She was one of these people who just had goals, just saw the goal, the end result, and knew how much work it would take to get there and was willing to do it."

Apparently, this will to succeed went back a long way. When she was nine months old she decided to walk, as her father, Robert, put it: "Laurel grabbed a chair, pulled herself to her feet, and walked. Then she crawled back to the chair and tried again. And again and again. She stood up and hung onto that kitchen chair and she wasn't interested in what I was doing. She was interested in what she was doing."

And that became a theme for her life, summarized by her dad as: "Get balanced, get organized, and get on the goal."

A couple years ago, when she was back in town for a few days, Laurel gave a talk at a Sunday service on the NASA space program and told us how she hoped the medical and scientific studies that were being done in outer space might benefit the whole human race. Whether it was studying roses or researching bone loss, looking for cancer treatments or tracking the progress of dust storms (all-in-all, involving over 80 studies and experiments in space) - Laurel was trying to further humanities' knowledge. When I talked to her Mom, Marge Brown, the day of the tragedy, she told her something that I've been thinking about ever since. She said Laurel really loved her work; she loved what she was doing; and although we all must grieve for her loss - as well as for the other astronauts who lost their lives as well - I think we need to remember that Laurel believed in what she was doing - I believe in what she was doing - she took a risk for all of us, and I can't help feeling a little proud that the vision she carried had some its roots here in Racine. And some of them here in my church. I also think Laurel and her companions have a message for this warring earth. When I was in Houston for the past couple days, I met a number of Laurel's fellow astronauts and I came to see how much of a family they had come to be to each other. And I thought about the fact that these seven people who died - these seven astronauts - were from different cultures and different religions. One was from India, one from Israel, black and white, male and female, so different from each other in many ways - and yet, they loved each other - with all their differences, they knew how to get along. Let us pray that someday we here on earth will learn to live together with the love and respect that those seven astronauts had in outer space. That is when we will know that we have carried on their dreams and that they will not have died in vain.

And now I'd like the Olympia Brown Choir to come up again. And as they are gathering, I want to tell you that Laurel loved her Scottish ancestry. In fact, when I officiated at her wedding here in Racine she and Jonathan decided to have bagpipes at the service. Also, each morning while they were in orbit, NASA would pipe in wake-up music for the astronauts. Each day a different piece for each astronaut. And the song they put on for Laurel - which was the very last song the astronauts heard - was "Scotland the Brave."

In Laurel's honor then - and in honor of all the astronauts who lost their lives doing something for all of us - I'd like our church's choir to sing a Scottish song and then I will offer a memorial prayer.

CHOIR SINGS

PRAYER (recited while the choir is singing "Oooh")
Spirit of Life, known by many names, Adonai, Brahman, Allah, Tao, God, and love and light - we who have gathered here mourn the loss of the Columbia astronauts, especially our own Laurel Salton Clark. We remember her enthusiasm, we honor her passion, and we are moved by her vision. And although we will never meet again on the bonnie bonnie banks of this earth, we will not forget her. We will see her where the sun shines bright and in purple hues where the moon comes out in the gloaming. We'll hear her in the wee birds that sing in the wildflower spring, and feel her in the sunshine where waters are sleeping. But most of all, we will see her in people who rise up to take on a challenge; in men and women who soar to the sky and dive to the deeps to live out their dreams; and in fellow travelers who see the earth as a tapestry of mountains and rivers, forests and oceans, where the divisions we make between one people and another disappear ... and we discover our planet in one seamless whole. We will miss you Laurel, but we cannot grieve too long because you will be with us in our best moments and we will carry on your dreams from this present moment to the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomand. Blessed be. Amen.

Unitarian Universalist Association
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