{"id":296,"date":"2004-02-29T22:27:17","date_gmt":"2004-03-01T06:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/02\/29\/a-comfort\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:18:08","slug":"a-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/02\/29\/a-comfort\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comfort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have always felt a tenderness in this poem.  When I&#8217;ve lost my way, or when I&#8217;ve been humbled by the vastness of existence &#8212; made aware of my great insignificance &#8212; this poem helps me to feel connected again.  Less lonely.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<table align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><u>People Like Us<\/u><\/p>\n<p>There are more like us.  All over the world<br \/>\nThere are confused people, who can&#8217;t remember<br \/>\nThe name of their dog when they wake up, and<br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;people<br \/>\nWho love God but can&#8217;t remember where<\/p>\n<p>He was when they went to sleep.  It&#8217;s<br \/>\nAll right.  The worlds cleanses itself this way.<br \/>\nA wrong number occurs to you in the middle<br \/>\nOf the night, you dial it, it rings just in time<\/p>\n<p>To save the house.  And the second-story man<br \/>\nGets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,<br \/>\nAnd he&#8217;s lonely, and they talk, and the thief<br \/>\nGoes back to college.  Even in graduate school,<\/p>\n<p>You can wander into the wrong classroom,<br \/>\nAnd hear great poems lovingly spoken<br \/>\nBy the wrong professor.  And you find your soul,<br \/>\nAnd greatness has a defender, and even in death<br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;you&#8217;re safe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Robert Bly<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have always felt a tenderness in this poem. When I&#8217;ve lost my way, or when I&#8217;ve been humbled by the vastness of existence &#8212; made aware of my great insignificance &#8212; this poem helps me to feel connected again. Less lonely. People Like Us There are more like us. All over the world There [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-humanities","category-quotes","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13048,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/13048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}