ABOUT Life Giving Spring
D. Stall
Currently, I live on family acreage, mostly wooded land in southeast Central Texas, after having spent most of my life in urban environments of Houston, Austin and San Francisco, where I am a caregiver for my elderly, widowed mother, and hope for some freelance work as a webdesigner-developer. Previously, I worked as a registered landscape architect (20+ years) in Houston, Austin and the San Francisco Bay area.
A Texas A&M University cum laude alum (BS Landscape Architecture & BS Horticulture), I am third in the first generation of my family to earn a university degree, son of high school graduates, and grandson of elementary school attendees. I can also be described as a 5th generation American, 4th generation Texan, the great-grandson of Texas pioneers, grandson of Texas subsistence farmers, and (ashamedly) a “city-slicker” (as my recently departed, dear ’ole dad would say), seeing how I was born and reared post-war (WWII - the “big” one) on the “lower” class (poor), blue-collar, industrial, east side of Houston, one of the most polluted places in USA.
Baptized and confirmed a Lutheran (LCMS), I first wondered about Ancient Faith in the 70s when I came upon a National Geographic photo of a young girl lighting a candle before an icon in “Great Religions of the World”, a book I had purchased for extra reading in my architectural history class. A classmate informed me of The Greek Festival in Houston, but I never managed to attend. The first time I experienced Ancient Faith liturgy was in the Holy Virgin Cathedral, Joy of All Who Sorrow on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, in 1992 (possibly during Nativity Lent), wherein the basement lay the relics of St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai & San Franciso prior to his glorification, who must surely have adopted me and watches over me still. It took eight more years of spiritual seeking for me to “find” (or be found by) Ancient Faith and to realize the significance of the experience after learning of godly sorrow.
Interest in genealogy and my family’s cultural heritage has deepened my appreciation of Christianity. While the apostle St. Pavlos is my personal patron, my family patron is St. Boniface of Crediton, gifting me with indebtedness to Orthodox England, spiritually as well as linguistically. An avid reader and practitioner of the prayer of the heart (I don't go out much - nearest Liturgy is 85-100 miles away), my favorite books include the “Prologue From Ohrid” and “Homilies” by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, and “The Southern Landscape Tradition in Texas” by J. B. (John Brinkerhoff) Jackson, which describes how cultural adaptions of English settlers to tropical climates were essential to the settlement of the South and transported from there to Texas. The Southern Landscape Tradition is the result of different climatic conditions in the South which required unique cultural adaptions rather than simply transplanting English culture to “New” England. This tradition is the basis of the Anglo-American ranching heritage in Texas that centers in Ft. Worth (in contrast to the Spanish ranching heritage centered in Kingsville), a pop cultural shadow of which is the western TV series, The Virginian.
Other interests include: history, historical preservation, cultural geography, cooperatives, intentional community, sustainable living, co-housing, voluntary simplicity, fair trade, agrarianism, alternative energy, off-grid homesteading, homeschooling, nature study, hiking, gardening, ethno-botany, whole food, and animal husbandry (especially goats). But my greatest interest is in synthesizing all these interests toward transfiguration of modern living through development of a distinctly contemporary Christian culture, founded on The Simple Gospel Life of Sacramental Living Rooted in Ancient Faith, as inspired by “sobornopravnist” – the local agrarian community at the center of Church life as manifestated on The Holy Mountain (Athos), in Old Russia and during the middle ages in Western Europe.
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