The journalist and columnist David Brooks has written and spoken eloquently about the challenges of the moral life, and life in general. Some years ago he recounted the experience of a woman he met in Ohio who came home one Sunday to find that her husband had killed their children and himself, perhaps one of the most horrific things one can imagine. She recovered from this and devoted her life to serving others, opening a free pharmacy and teaching at Ohio State University and helping women who have suffered violence. Part of her motivation was anger at her husband and not wanting to let him ruin her life. Brooks borrows a phrase from Parker Palmer to describe how some people are broken by life’s tragedies, while others are broken open. Palmer writes about two ways in which the heart can be broken; one where it is shattered and scattered and one where it is “broken open into new capacity, holding more of both our own and the world’s suffering and joy, despair and hope.” Life can be hard, and sometimes we need for our hearts and minds to be broken open in order for us to reach a new level of caring and understanding with which to solve life’s challenges. The problems of life can usually not be solved with the same consciousness which created them.