Arrestingly 'Cardiac'

I love words.

You've probably already guessed that from my flagrant overuse of them, but it's true. I'm a word-packrat. I ferret away terms, phrases, quotes, bits of dialogue, poems, stories, essays and diatribes. Basically, any group of words that catches my ear, from outside or inside of my head. I keep them on lists on my computer, in my journals, in notebooks, on my Palm Pilot. I'll even type them up and e-mail them to myself or call myself and leave them on my voicemail. Here's the latest term I've added to my collection:

car·di·ac
Pronunciation: 'kär-dE-"ak
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin cardiacus, from Greek kardiakos, from kardia
1 : essential, vital to, or at the heart of a matter.

Clearly, I've heard the word before, but never in that context. That was the way it was used in a sermon I heard yesterday on the importance of the Holy Spirit and forgiveness to missions work. Dick Foth, the preacher of said sermon, is an incredible theological mind, an awesome teacher-preacher (my favorite kind), and a long-standing friend of my church, NCC. He's also one of the few people, alive or dead, that I would consider a role model. He borrowed the usage from a friend of his, whose name I'm forgetting, but I'll credit him since he introduced it to me and I welcome any opportunity to give him a shout out.