Yes, John, and if we draw them ourselves and take responsibility for doing it, we can move them, too.

I've been thinking since my last post-- a bad habit that can lead to more posts. I am thinking that I wish that before posting earlier, or even days ago when she first objected to the Pol Pot business, that I had messaged Mary, and asked her if what she was trying to say was, "This hurts me. Could you please stop." Because I have trouble hearing that when it isn't said straight out. But people also have a hard time saying it straight out-- I have trouble saying it straight out myself.

Instead it is so much easier to say, "YOU make me feel like THIS." Or "YOU should do THIS so I won't have to feel THAT." Or "MY feelings are a reliable guide to YOUR action." Or "YOU are wrong because what is RIGHT is...."

So then I've been wondering how often I've been drawn into a debate that started with what really was meant to say, "This is what hurts me." I KNOW how I prefer to respond to that kind of statement. It's just real hard to know when to read that between the lines and when to take someone's words at face value. It's an area where I see myself changing-- so the older guidelines I used to use, sometimes without deep thought, are shifting.

There are those kinds of lines too.

Hopefully we all have those too, and hopefully they all shift as we put in more time on the planet. I know if I had to see everyone *here* as rigidly, inescapably, and eternally committed to any one thing they have said, it would be a world I would not care to live in.

~S~