Word #1: Heart.

We use this word often and glibly.

But today I hope you can feel it. Picture it. Grapple with it.

Put your hand over your heart. Not to pledge anything. But to feel it.

Get under your shirt. Hold the skin on your palm fully and firmly over the skin and bones covering your heart.

Can you feel the beating of your heart?

As you hold yourself tightly, close your eyes. Picture your actual heart.  The electrically charged, muscular organ sustaining every cell in your body.

Your beautiful beating heart.

If you have ever sat next to someone as their heart stopped beating, you’ve experienced that fine line between life and death.

In this moment, your heart is beating. You are gloriously alive.  There is no way to justify this gift of life we’ve been given.

But maybe sitting and feeling the beating of your heart for a moment will remind you. You are alive. You are a universe of wonder.

Remembering this is a solid starting point to a life well-lived.