Robert L. Peters

15 January 2008

Keep trying. Keep serving.

lost-river.jpg

Seattle, Washington

I read a great interview today with author, storyteller, conservationist, and avid fly-fisherman David James Duncan. The piece entitled ‘By Hook and By Book’ is featured in the environmental journal Grist/InterActivist. Here’s Duncan’s inspiring answer to the Grist editor’s question at the end of the interview: “If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?”

“Keep trying. Keep serving. Worrying is praying for what you don’t want. Keep trying to feel grateful for what is beautiful, even as you’re trying to change what is deadly. If you can’t change what is deadly, bitch—as eloquently and lovingly and effectively as you can. But then: listen! Then take the time to renew your peace, enjoy having five senses, watch the clouds move, until you feel your inner being return to gratitude—the basic daily stance of all those who realize we did not create ourselves. You’ll win some, you’ll lose some, but above or beyond or within all of those efforts, you might now and then enter a mysterious clearing (if it hasn’t happened already) and suddenly feel loved.”

Read the Grist interview here.

Duncan and a variety of compatriots were photographed in 13 colorful dories, rowing and casting lines—into a golden field of wheat. The image appears on a poster distributed by Save Our Wild Salmon, a collaboration of conservationists, fisherfolk, and others interested in the removal of four dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington state.

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