A burglar, needing money, decided to rob a safe in a store. On the safe door, he was very pleased to find the following note: "Please don't use dynamite. This safe is not locked. Just turn the knob." The burglar did so. Instantly a heavy sandbag fell on his head: the entire premises were floodlighted, and alarm bells started clanging. As the police were carrying him out on a stretcher, he was heard to complain: "My confidence in human nature has been severely shaken." We all go through a time of questioning the goodness of humanity and of life on this earth. We may feel betrayed or disappointed or let down by life. It didn't work out the way we thought it would. Yet the real deepening of our inner life occurs precisely at the same time that our outer values are called into question. If we don't opt for a skeptical or pessimistic conclusion but stay open, we come to realize a deeper meaning and purpose to this existence which has its own affirmation of the goodness of life on this earth.