Writer and conservationist bringing newest book to Eagle Harbor April 25.

“We can do no great things, only small things, with great love.”

– Mother Theresa

“That quote from Mother Theresa has been my mantra for the last three years,” author David James Duncan said in a recent phone interview from his home in Montana.

Duncan is the author of “The River Why” and “The Brothers K,” as well as several non-fiction works, and has advocated for conservation issues throughout the West.

He is coming to Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island to talk about his latest non-fiction book, which is both a departure from and a continuation of his conservation-based books.

“God Laughs & Plays” is subtitled “Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right,” and Duncan takes aim at this faction with both barrels.

He is outraged that this extreme group, under the leadership of Pres. George W. Bush, is using God as a weapon in the destruction of the environment.

“To describe the current war on nature as “stewardship” is to forsake the teachings of the Bible. . . American fundamentalists, despite avowed love for this same Jesus, predominately support a Bush administration that has worked to weaken the Clear Air and Clean Water Acts and gut the Endangered Species and Environmental Policy Acts,” he writes.

Duncan said that judging from the conservation voting records of “those the Christian Right support in Congress,” “the majority of fundamentalists see Mother Earth as a trampoline upon which we must stomp, the harder we stomp the more proud of us God will be, for Earth is fleeting, and only here to launch us toward heaven, so why not blow mountains up and dump them as rubble on top of streams, and why not support, from the pulpits of our so-called houses of God, so-called conservative candidates who conserve nothing but corporate profits reaped through our Armageddon-aimed Earth-stomping Agenda?” Whew.

By phone he continued, “It’s psychosis, not religion — for people who believe in Jesus, it’s driving them nuts.”

Duncan is an avid, one could say zealous, fly fisher and believer in Jesus. His religious philosophy could be called “God is in the fly rod.”

He finds the natural world to be constant proof of the presence of Jesus, with the riverbank his church and the sky his cathedral dome.

In our conversation he told of crossing a river near his home, onto an isolated island in the middle. The place was a veritable Garden of Eden, with deer, birds and “pellucid” water (Yes, he uses words like “pellucid” in normal conversation). A mother goose left her nest at his approach, and there, like an Andy Goldworthy sculpture, was a goose nest, constructed of willow wands, tansy seeds and goose down, all woven together, cradling seven goose eggs.

“To marvel at those perfect concentric circles, it felt like I had found a bull’s-eye,” he said. “The amount of care that took is inspiring.”

For someone with such a deep love for both nature and Jesus, he said it has been exceedingly painful to watch the environmental damage caused by the Bush administration. But rather than wring his hands at the futility of fighting against this Goliath, Duncan loads his sling and takes aim at lesser targets, doing small things, with great love.

“Instead of waking up each morning and defining myself as an impotent war protester in an America run by oil-worshipping thugs, I started waking up and thinking, ‘OK. What small thing can I do today with love?’”

Some of those small things turn out to be pretty great.

When a gasoline pipeline running under Whatcom Creek in Bellingham ruptured and exploded in 1999, three young people died in the fireball. Duncan learned that one of them was 18-year-old Liam Wood, who, like Duncan, was an avid fisher and stream lover.

Duncan worked with Liam’s family to create “a little river lover’s school,” The Liam Wood Flyfishing and River Guardian School, in Bellingham. In 2004 the school graduated its first 17 students.

Duncan noted in our conversation that while he vehemently opposes many of the policies of the Bush administration, he refuses labels such as Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. He’s not even a member of the Sierra Club.

“I’ve gotten help from both sides of the aisle,” he said. “When you’re trying to keep a river alive, it doesn’t help to isolate people.”

While his actions, such as advocating for the removal of dams, would seem to consign him to the “left side of the aisle,” he said, “I can’t not speak for the salmon.”

As Earth Day approaches, many people are thinking about what they can do to honor the Earth.

Duncan has a suggestion: “If there’s a place that touches you, opens you, going into that place and being quiet is a good idea.” And then, “spend the rest of the year making that your fighting for the Earth day.”

David James Duncan appears 7:30 p.m. April 25 at Eagle Harbor Books, 157 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island. Due to the large turnout expected, this is a ticketed event. Two tickets will be given out with each copy of “God Laughs & Plays” purchased at Eagle Harbor Books.