The New Year offers an apt opportunity to reflect upon life and work. Life is full of refreshing cycles. Marked by a process of gradual growth and change, the movements of life can be beautiful. They are also purposeful. Whether you have celebrated many or few New Years, there is much to learn by persevering in hard work and thoughtful examination. It’s easy to take the daily cycles of life for granted. People perform them so many times. We eat, drink, sleep, and wake. Yet ordinary rituals are meaningful. They point to the necessity for mankind to rest, refresh, and reflect. Take dinnertime, for example. Sharing a meal with gratitude during the ebbing hours can be rejuvenating to all aspects of personhood. By the dinner table in my home, there is a large window that overlooks a breezy bayou. It’s moving to watch the changes of days, nights, and seasons …