Marvelously Made: Gratefulness and the Body by Mary C. Earle (Paperback)

"""Each chapter in Marvelously Made focuses on a vital part of the body (the heart, the lungs, the brain, the joints); relates an anecdote from the author's experience; provides reader-friendly(i.e., not overly technical) information about the wonders of the organ or body part, and offers a prayer and a set of ""gratitude practices""--physical and spiritual meditation exercises to deepen the reader's appreciation of the body. Excerpt The heart works (as do all of our organs) every moment of our lives, whether we are aware of it or not. The heart is a muscle, an extraordinary muscle with exquisite timing, which, when disrupted, causes grave problems. Brian Doyle, a writer whose son's heart had congenital malformation, writes, ""It weighs eleven ounces. It feeds a vascular system that comprises sixty thousand miles of veins and arteries and capillaries. It beats a hundred-thousand times a day. It shoves two thousand gallons of blood through the body everyday. It begins when a fetus is three weeks old and a cluster of cells begins to pulse with the cadence of that particular person, a music and a rhythm and a pace that will endure a whole lifetime. No one knows why the cluster of cells begins to pulse at that time or with that beat."" (from The Wet Engine , by Brian Doyle)."""