It was like nothing else in my life up to now. This scene reminded me of something which happened recently in the museum I direct, the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney. For many people, museums are a kind of cathedral. When they come into museums' galleries, they speak more quietly. There is often a sense of awe, even reverence.
People find spiritual refreshment in the atmosphere of the museum.
My own sense of spiritual refreshment was enlarged recently by something I saw in our museum which had to do with a blind man. It was the evening of a choral concert by a University of Nebraska at Kearney student choir being presented at the museum. One of the singers in the chorus is blind. Prior to the performance, with the assistance of one of the other singers, I watched him walk over to a life size sculpture in our East Gallery, a bronze sculpture of a Native American woman by Nebraska sculptor, Martha Pettigrew. Now we all know, don't we, that when we are in an art museum, we do not touch the art.