I have been honored to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired me. These beings have spoken to me, touched me, and I have been rewarded by friendship with many members of different species. If the whales survive and flourish, if the seals continue to live and give birth, and if I can contribute to ensuring their future prosperity, I will be forever happy.
Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.
It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.
It's the rough diamond that dictates what you can get out of a diamond. You can't say, "I'm going to make this," or, "I'm going to make that." It's nature. Whatever nature gives us, we explore and we build on. We can't create something that is not in the stone, so we take away as many imperfections as we can. Sometimes, you can't take them all away. But mostly, our cut, our polish, the life we put into the stones, the beauty that we bring out is exceptional.
As clichéd as it sounds, relationships between women do shape so much of our understandings of ourselves, starting with our mothers. I think all women can relate to the feeling of having merged with best friends. We begin to look alike, talk alike, even take on the same mannerisms. They are as close as family. We give a lot of attention to the heterosexual, nuclear family, but our friends determine as much, I bet, of who we are, how we feel, and how we behave.
As long as I hold tightly to something, I believe I own it. But when I give it away, I relinquish control, power, and prestige. When I realize that God has a claim not merely on the few dollars I might choose to throw in an offering plate, not simply on 10 percent or even 50 percent, but on 100 percent of "my" money, it's revolutionary. If I'm God's money manager, I'm not God. Money isn't God. God is God. So God, money, and I are each put in our rightful place.