I'm currently teaching a class on the spiritual disciplines.  Although at some first glance, some may find the word "spiritual" off putting, these disciplines are in fact practices in which everyone can engage, regardless of her degree of belief (or disbelief).  Properly understood, many of these disciplines invite us into moments in which we find the space to contemplate on the deeper elements of our existence.
     This week, we are talking about meditation.  If you are familiar with Transcendental Meditation, which, thanks to the Beatles's summer of 1966 interest in the work of the Maharishi Yogi, took the West by storm in the Seventies, you should know that it is but one of many options for practicing such things.  Reduced to its most fundamental parts, meditation is simply a way to put oneself in a place in which one is more open to engaging with the bigger picture of what life is.

     Even if you don't believe that life has any larger point, you doubtless affirm that your life has purpose.  And what is it?  That is the point of meditation:  to find who we, and life, most fully are.
     It's no accident that even the most ardent disbelievers find meaningfulness in the thoughts and writings of those who, even many centuries ago, journeyed into what they could not visibly see.
     That's really the point, isn't it?