NO MATTER HOW SELF-ASSURED WE ARE, in a fraction of a second, our lives can be utterly devastated. As in the biblical story of Jonah, the unknowable forces of trauma and loss can swallow us whole, thrusting us deep into their cold dark belly. Entrapped yet lost, we become hopelessly frozen by terror and helplessness. Early in the year 2005,1 walked out of my house into a balmy Southern California morning. The gende warmth and soft sea breeze gave a lift to my step. Certainly, this was the kind of winter morning that makes everyone in the rest of the country (with the possible exception of Garrison Keillor of.
