Finding Faith Outside

After hiking to a lake in the Cascade Mountains and fasting for ten days, award-winning author David James Duncan returned home a different person. During that time, Duncan felt momentary relief from his hardships and received direction for his life, leaving him with an unshakeable resolve that the environment doesn’t just overlap with holiness; it is holiness. Now, he writes novels that bring environmental issues to the forefront of readers’ minds, hoping to encourage the protection of the environment while giving readers an idea of the spiritual journey they could experience in nature. On October 4, 2024, Professor George Handley (Literature of the Americas, Ecotheology) interviewed Duncan in a public forum. There, Duncan shared how spirituality—or making a connection with an entity bigger than oneself—can be developed in nature and then channeled into writing.

Faith and Fly-fishing

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Over the years, Duncan’s adventures in nature have changed the course of his life multiple times. Having developed such a strong connection with nature, Duncan turned to writing as a way to communicate nature’s majesty through fictional stories and characters who have personal experiences in nature. Though his stories are fictional, he embeds pieces of his own life into each novel he creates—starting with The River Why.

Duncan grew up with an appreciation for fly-fishing, a hobby his dad passed on to him at a young age. Even without a fishing pole in hand, he still felt drawn to the water. He recalled visiting a real-estate property with his grandmother in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, where he wandered into a trout stream called Johnson Creek. As he waded in the water, Duncan saw “this big, male, coho salmon with those red, black, and white colors and that hook in their jaw just came gliding right by with its unblinking eye, staring into my eyes.” This moment encouraged him to eventually write his best-selling novel, The River Why. In this novel, Duncan introduces Gus, an avid fly-fisher who moves to a cabin in the Oregon Coast Range and discovers the real meaning of life through experiences with nature, neighbors, and fly-fishing.

This experience also inspired Duncan to trek through the Cascade Mountains as a senior in high school; though the trip was a mere 10 days, it altered his life course, giving him a newfound purpose and delight in the world around him. Duncan explained that these moments in nature—whether it be hiking, backpacking, or fly-fishing—gave him a desire to protect it. He says, “This holiness really touches me, and it’s given me so much. It gives us all [purpose to] our lives, every day. And I can’t think of anything that isn’t involved with nature—it’s what the world is built of. What we’re defending is a holiness; it’s not the environment.”

Spirituality through Writing

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As a writer, Duncan now strives to show the effects of spirituality using carefully crafted stories. He said, “I do think of [writing] as a spiritual practice. It really is a medium where you can create situations that show compassion in action without having to write a didactic sermon about it. You can show people actually doing things that are really helping each other in a selfless way.”

Duncan explained that reading hope-filled teachings from religious texts helps to guide his spirituality. In fact, some of his most meaningful excursions in nature have been done in search of the peace and renewing power spoken of in various religious texts. Though not a Christian himself, Duncan finds some of this inspiration in Christ’s life and teachings. He said, “I just love Jesus and the things He said. It’s as simple as that for me. . . . I just want to love Him as best I understand Him and as best I can emulate His life.” For Duncan, that means writing; not to fill a quota or receive rewards, but to inspire and spread messages of hope.

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