Sunday Apr. 22 –
9:30am-12pm

What About When It’s a Disaster? That’s It, too.

There’s a beautiful story, perhaps true, of what happened to the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad during the 900 day siege during World War II.

The paintings all left secretly, on trains to the Urals, but the staff stayed on, cleaning up after the bombings and providing first aid to the wounded, and surviving, when that was possible.

They also gave tours to people who came to see the museum, and described what would

have been there inside the frames. Blind people came, too, and were able to see the paintings during this time. A disaster isn’t always what we imagine. What we do when we are beyond our limits and at our wit’s end always comes as a surprise and can be the doorway to a new kind of life, and to resources we wouldn’t have imagined. 

Rachel