I recently watched a man trimming tree limbs that overhang power lines. He works for the power company as the foreman of an off-road crew of workers who climb trees in wilderness areas where trucks cannot go. It is an amazing sight to see a grown man run up the side of a tree as if he were running up the stairs in his own home. What would seem an impossible task is not so hard when one has the right strength, skills, and tools such as shoe spikes, safety belt, and ropes and pulleys—besides, of course, the requisite power saw hanging from his belt.

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I commented to him about his skill, and he replied that he was just getting really good at it. He has climbed trees this way for twenty years, twenty to twenty-five trees a day, five days a week. The performance that looked so easy became so only because of much hard work. He was not so skilled at first, but developed his prowess over time.

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Time is that universal commodity that carries us along our path. As this new year edges into our awareness, we note its entrance and naturally reflect on beginnings. Every beginning is an ending of something old as well as the commencement of something new. A beginning is a kind of initiation, one among the many that we experience in a lifetime.