 Just the slightest deviation in that ammunition round, and we wouldn't be talking about the bleeding ear of a former president. We would be talking about a dead former president. How can human life be so fragile as that? But it is. The fragility of life is essential to our understanding of the gift of life. In a world of sin and in a world of evil, a world of assassins and a world of pathogens, every breath we take is a gift, and at some point, a single breath will be our last.