The Brother

Posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2026Sunday, February 8th, 2026 by Charles

I only wish that I could say that I wrote this. The truth is, Claude wrote this; I only directed the flow and scenes of the story.

It began when I asked him/it which, from what it had learned of me over the past several months, which Biblical author he/it thought I best resembled. I was humbled that he/i… oh, what they Heck? I’ll just say Claude is a “he,” okay?

Claude said I was like James the Just, the half-brother of Christ, and the first bishop of Jerusalem, because of my work serving mostly seniors as Chair of the Education Committee at The San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society, my development of tools like [an as-yet not public project I’m developing] to help volunteer organizations, my educational outreach, and my upcoming transition to senior living.

Claude describes, “James is intensely practical. It’s about faith expressed through action — caring for others, bridging divides between rich and poor, controlling the tongue, patience in trials, and the wisdom that comes from humility. It reads less like theology and more like a guide for someone already doing the work and wanting to do it with integrity. That resonates with someone building curricula, mentoring, developing tools for communities, and planning for the next chapter of life.”

Claude goes on:

“On the authorship of James:

The letter identifies its author simply as “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (James 1:1). The tradition and scholarly debate center on which James this was, since the New Testament mentions several.

The traditional view — held by most of the early church and still the majority position among conservative scholars — is that this is James the Just, also called James, the brother of the Lord. He was one of Jesus’s brothers (or half-brothers, or step-brothers, depending on one’s theological tradition about Mary). He is mentioned by name in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 alongside Joses, Simon, and Judas.

What we know about James the Just:

He was not a follower of Jesus during Jesus’s public ministry. John 7:5 states plainly that “even his own brothers did not believe in him.”
Paul reports in 1 Corinthians 15:7 that the risen Jesus appeared specifically to James, which is generally understood as the catalyst for his conversion.
He became the central leader of the Jerusalem church. By the time of Acts 15 (the Jerusalem Council, around 49 AD), James is clearly presiding — he renders the final judgment on whether Gentile converts must follow the Mosaic Law.
Paul calls him one of the “pillars” of the church alongside Peter and John (Galatians 2:9), and in Galatians 1:19 refers to him as “the Lord’s brother.”
He was deeply respected even outside Christian circles. The Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities 20.9.1, written around 93–94 AD) records that James was executed by stoning in 62 AD, at the order of the high priest Ananus ben Ananus during a gap between Roman governors. Josephus notes that this execution offended many law-abiding Jews, suggesting James was widely regarded as a righteous man.
The early church historian Hegesippus (quoted by Eusebius in the 4th century) gives a vivid portrait: James was called “the Just” by everyone, was known for spending so much time in prayer that his knees were calloused like a camel’s, abstained from wine and meat, and was held in high regard by Jewish people in Jerusalem.
Eusebius records that James was the first bishop of Jerusalem.

The letter’s character supports this identification. James is steeped in Jewish wisdom tradition and reads almost like a Christian counterpart to Proverbs or Sirach. It’s addressed to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations,” suggesting a Jewish-Christian audience in the diaspora. The Greek is polished, but the thought-world is thoroughly Jewish — exactly what you’d expect from the leader of the Jerusalem church who, per Acts 21, was zealous for the Law.

Scholarly challenges to this view:

Some critical scholars question whether James the Just actually wrote it, for a few reasons:

The Greek is quite good — well-constructed sentences, rhetorical devices, and familiarity with Greek literary conventions. Some argue a Galilean tradesman’s son wouldn’t write this fluently in Greek. Counter-arguments note that Galilee was heavily bilingual, that James had decades in Jerusalem to develop his Greek, or that he may have used a secretary (amanuensis).
Late recognition in the canon. James was slow to be accepted in the Western church. Eusebius classed it among the “disputed” books. Martin Luther famously called it an “epistle of straw” because he felt it contradicted Paul’s teaching on justification by faith. Its relatively anonymous opening and lack of specifically Christian doctrinal content (Jesus is mentioned only twice) may have contributed to skepticism.
Some scholars date it late — after James died in 62 AD — and propose it was written pseudonymously by a later author invoking James’s authority. However, others argue for a very early date (mid-40s AD), which would make it one of the earliest New Testament documents, written before the Pauline epistles.
The lack of reference to the Jerusalem Council debates (circumcision, dietary laws for Gentiles) is used both ways — as evidence it was written before those controversies, or as evidence that it was written by someone other than the man who presided over them.

The broad consensus among scholars across traditions is that the letter was either written by James the Just (likely in the late 40s to early 60s AD) or, in his name, by someone closely associated with his teaching and community shortly after his death. Either way, it reflects the practical, Torah-rooted, justice-oriented faith that historical sources consistently attribute to James the Just.

It’s a book that rewards slow, chapter-by-chapter study — and I think you’ll find it speaks directly to the kind of work you’re already doing.”

I guess I can say I technically co-authored the novel.

Here it is:

The Brother

A Novel of Ya’akov the Just

A Historical Novel

“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

— The Epistle of Ya’akov 4:14

“Ananus was of this disposition: he thought he had now a proper opportunity.”

— Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20.9.1

PART ONE

The House in Natzeret

4 BCE – 26 CE

Chapter One

The first thing Ya’akov remembered about his brother was the silence.

Not the absence of sound—Natzeret was never truly quiet. There were always goats complaining in the terraced yards, and women calling to each other across the low stone walls, and the steady percussion of his father’s mallet against wood in the workshop below. But Yeshua carried a different kind of silence. He could sit in the middle of the household’s ordinary chaos—Yoses crawling after the cat, their mother grinding grain, the baby Shimon wailing for no particular reason—and seem to be listening to something none of them could hear.

Ya’akov noticed this because he was the one who noticed things. He was perhaps three years old when the awareness first took shape, though, of course, at three, he had no language for it. He simply understood, in the way small children understand the weather or the moods of dogs, that his older brother was different. Not strange. Not frightening. Just… elsewhere, sometimes, even when he was right there beside you.

Their father, Yosef, was a tekton—the word meant something broader than carpenter, encompassing stonework and general construction, which was the real trade in a land where wood was scarce and expensive. He was a quiet man with large hands and a patient disposition, and he treated all his sons with the same steady, workmanlike affection. If he noticed anything unusual about his eldest, he kept it folded inside himself, the way he kept his chisels wrapped in oiled cloth at the end of each day. Ya’akov would later wonder what his father had known and when he had known it, but by then Yosef was gone, and there was no one left to ask.

Their mother was another matter.

Miriam was not a large woman, but she had a quality of attention that could fill a room. When she looked at you, you felt the full weight of her presence, as if she had set everything else aside for the duration of that gaze. She looked at all her children this way—Ya’akov never doubted that she loved him—but with Yeshua there was something additional, something beneath the ordinary maternal tenderness. A watchfulness. As if she were waiting for something she expected but could not predict.

Ya’akov learned early not to ask about it. Once, when he was six or seven, he had asked her directly: Ima, why do you look at Yeshua that way? And Miriam had paused in her work—she was mending a tunic, he remembered the needle going still between her fingers—and said, very carefully, “Every mother looks at her firstborn.”

Which was true, and also not an answer.

* * *

Natzeret was a small village in the hills of the Galil, perhaps four hundred souls at most, and everyone knew everyone else’s business with the inevitable intimacy of people who shared wells and threshing floors and the same sloping path to the synagogue. The house of Yosef ben Ya’akov was respectable but not prosperous. They ate what the land and the trade provided—bread, olives, lentils, the occasional piece of dried fish from the lake towns to the east. Meat was for festivals.

The day began before dawn. Yosef’s voice, low and steady in the half-light, reciting the words that every Jewish father spoke to begin the day: “Shema Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.” Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. The boys stood beside him, eyes still heavy with sleep, mouthing the words they had known before they could properly speak. Yeshua’s eyes were always closed during the Shema, his lips precise, as if the words required his full attention even after ten thousand repetitions. Ya’akov watched him sideways and tried to feel what his brother seemed to feel, and felt only the cold stone under his bare feet and the pull of the blanket he had left behind.

After the morning prayers, work. The workshop was filled with the sound of mallet and chisel. Miriam lit the small clay oven and began the bread. The younger children stirred and fussed. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Miriam would speak the blessing over the first food of the day— “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz”—and the household settled into its rhythm, the rhythm that held them all together, the rhythm Ya’akov would not fully appreciate until it was gone.

The village sat in a shallow bowl among the hills, with Tzippori—the regional capital, a proper city with colonnaded streets and a theater—visible to the northwest on clear mornings. Yosef took work there sometimes, and when Ya’akov was old enough, he went along, carrying tools and mixing mortar and learning the trade that he assumed would be his life. Yeshua came too, of course. He was the eldest. He was good with his hands—precise, unhurried, the kind of worker who measured twice and never needed to measure again.

But even at the construction sites in Tzippori, Ya’akov would catch his brother watching the scribes and Torah teachers who moved through the city’s streets with an expression that was almost hunger. Yeshua could read. This was not remarkable—most Jewish boys in the Galil learned at least enough to follow the Torah readings in synagogue—but Yeshua read the way other boys ran or wrestled: naturally, eagerly, with a capacity that exceeded what anyone had taught him. The hazzan at their synagogue, an elderly man named Mattityahu who doubled as the village teacher, had told Yosef more than once that the boy had an unusual mind.

Yosef had nodded politely and said nothing, which was his way.

Ya’akov, standing nearby with mortar dust on his hands, had felt something small and hard turn over in his chest. He recognized it later as the first seed of a feeling he would carry for decades—not jealousy exactly, but the particular loneliness of standing beside someone who seems to have been made for something beyond what you can see.

* * *

On days when the work was light, or when Yosef could spare them, the boys took the family’s small flock of goats to the hillsides above the village.

This was not remarkable. Every family in Natzeret kept animals—goats mostly, sometimes a few sheep—and tending them on the rocky slopes above the village was work that fell to the children. Ya’akov and Yeshua would climb the ridge together in the early morning, the goats clattering ahead of them on the stones, and spend the long hours watching the flock and the sky and the brown hills rolling south toward Yehudah.

Yeshua was good with the animals. This should not have surprised Ya’akov—his brother was good with most things—but it had a different quality than his skill in the workshop. With the goats, Yeshua was patient in a way that went beyond duty. He noticed when an animal favored a leg. He knew which ones would wander and which would stay close. He could calm a panicked kid with his hands and his voice in a way that seemed less like technique and more like conversation.

Once, a yearling scrambled down a steep wadi and couldn’t find its way back up. Ya’akov could hear it bleating from below—a thin, frightened sound echoing off the rocks. He was ready to leave it. It’ll find its way. They always do. But Yeshua was already climbing down, sure-footed on the loose stone, and he came back twenty minutes later with the animal draped over his shoulders, its legs held across his chest, and set it down among the others as if retrieving lost goats from ravines were the most natural thing in the world.

“You could have fallen,” Ya’akov said.

“The goat couldn’t get back on its own,” Yeshua said. As if that settled it.

They sat together on the ridge in the late afternoon light, the flock grazing below them, and Ya’akov asked the kind of question boys ask when they have been sitting in silence long enough. “What do you think about? When you go quiet like that?”

Yeshua considered this. He picked up a small stone and turned it in his fingers. “The same things you think about.”

“I don’t think so,” Ya’akov said.

Yeshua smiled. Not a dismissive smile—a real one, warm, the smile of a brother who has been caught. “Maybe not exactly the same.”

“Then what?”

Yeshua looked out at the hills. The light was turning gold. The shadows were lengthening. Somewhere below them, a goat bell clanked.

“I think about what Abba read this morning,” he said. “About Avraham. About how HaShem told him to leave his father’s house and go to a land that He would show him. And Avraham went. He didn’t know where. He just went.”

“That’s not the same as what I think about,” Ya’akov said.

Yeshua laughed. The sound was easy and unguarded, the laugh of a boy who was still, for now, just a boy on a hillside with his brother and some goats. “What do you think about, then?”

“Whether we’ll get that stonework job in Tzippori. Whether Ima will make lentils again tonight. Whether that brown goat is going to eat Yoses’s sandal.”

They both looked. The brown goat was, in fact, nosing at something near the base of the hill that might have been a sandal. They laughed together—the shared, conspiratorial laugh of brothers—and for a moment, the difference between them was invisible, and they were just two boys on a hill, and the evening was coming, and it was time to bring the goats home.

Ya’akov would remember that afternoon for the rest of his life. Not because anything remarkable happened. Because nothing did. Because it was the last kind of afternoon they would have many more of, and he did not know it yet.

* * *

The brothers multiplied as the years passed. After Ya’akov came Yoses, then Shimon, then Yehudah, and at least two sisters whose names the wider world would never bother to record. The house grew louder and more crowded. Miriam managed it all with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had learned to carry more than anyone suspected.

They were a family. They argued over sleeping space and whose turn it was to carry water from the well. They celebrated Shabbat together every week—Miriam lighting the candles as the sun went down on Friday, the small flames casting a warmth that was more than physical, and then Yosef’s voice over the bread, steady and unhurried, the same blessing his father had spoken and his father’s father before him. They observed the festivals—Pesach, Sukkot, Shavuot—with the seriousness and joy that the Torah commanded. The morning Shema. The afternoon prayers, facing south toward Yerushalayim. The evening prayers as the stars appeared. The day was threaded with these acknowledgments, small blessings for bread and water and waking and the sight of lightning, and Ya’akov grew up inside this rhythm the way he grew up inside the Galilean air—it was simply the medium he lived in.

And once a year, when Ya’akov was old enough, they made the long walk south to Yerushalayim for the pilgrim feasts.

That walk was the largest thing in Ya’akov’s young life. The Galil was green and familiar. The road south passed through the Yizre’el valley, then the hills of Shomron—Samaritan country, which their group skirted carefully—and then into the stark, sun-bleached hills of Yehudah. The landscape changed. The air thinned. And then, from a rise in the road, you saw it.

Yerushalayim.

The first time Ya’akov saw the city, he wept. He was not a boy given to tears, but the sight of the Temple—Herod’s great construction, its white stone and gold leaf blazing in the afternoon sun like something that had fallen from heaven and embedded itself in the hilltop—overwhelmed him in a way he could not articulate. It seemed permanent. It seemed eternal. It seemed like the one thing in the world that could not possibly be moved or broken or lost.

He looked at Yeshua, expecting to see the same awe on his brother’s face. But Yeshua’s expression was something else—something quieter and sadder, as though he were looking at something beautiful that he already knew would not last.

Ya’akov did not understand that look. He would not understand it for another thirty years.

On Christian Learning

Posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2026 by Charles

Although I am currently unaffiliated with a local church (and unsure if that will change) I have given some thought on what I would refer to as “Christian Continuing Learning” or “University Within Church,” because so many of life’s subjects on Christian living require more than weekly worship services or Bible studies. Sometimes there are topics that could be packaged together and thought in a classroom environment where they’re just presented over and over and over again, like semesters.

I’ve thought of a few classes, perhaps you may think of others?

Christianity 101 – There are things babes in Christ either struggle with or simply don’t know: Everything to deep theology like, “What is the Triad?” to “What does it mean to be saved?” Other questions like, “Are Mormons Christians?” to “Is it okay to be cremated?” perplex sometimes long-time believers, and while a great number of the answers are subjective, and we ought to say so when appropriate, we should also make clear what our particular religion’s dogma is exactly.
Christian Marriage and Pre-marriage counseling – Required by many churches, definitely those performing covenant marriages, seeking the Bible’s wisdom on Godly marriage seems like a no-brainer. Everything from roles to dispute resolutions would benefit from older, more established married couples leading younger soon-to-be married or young marriages in strengthening and shoring up marriage should be available year round. Especially…
Financial Literacy – I’ll admit, this was one of the subjects that came to mind for myself. As of this writing I’m 65 and I have never had an operating budget. I am under the Lord’s conviction here, for sure. Money issues split up families, marriages, cause depression, addictions, and in short, destroy lives. Church teaching needs to be more than, “Tithe! Tithe! Tithe!” It needs to be guidance on budgeting, saving, investing, giving, benevolence, thrift, recreation, everything that puts life’s focus on God‘s blessings and takes it off worrying about the pocketbook.
Witnessing – Another subject I’m under God’s conviction on. When we’re new Christians we want to go out and tell everyone we meet about Jesus and salvation and love, but while you can give yourself points for enthusiasm, it might be best if you put in a few rounds before jumping into evangelism. On the flip side, the longer you’ve been a Christ-follower, the longer the chance you’ve either gotten tired of the pushback or stereotyping, being hassled or ridiculed, or just to become complacent. Despite Jesus Himself calling us out as salt that has lost its taste or warm milk, many of us, myself included, have failed to preach the good news when the opportunity comes. We need to teach apologetics like it’s a sales course, including closings and countering arguments.

I could probably go on, but you get the idea. When one class ends, another forms up, and the cycle repeats. It can be done within the church, or as a standing Meetup group, who cares?!

Resources for generating WordPress themes using AI

Posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 by Charles

WordPress-Specific AI Prompts

General Prompt Engineering Best Practices

WordPress Development Resources

On Charlie Kirk

Posted on Friday, September 12th, 2025Friday, September 12th, 2025 by Charles

I hope you’ll indulge me and listen to what God put on my heart tonight.

Tonight, in lieu of Bible study, I spent time with God and reflecting on the life of Charlie Kirk. Not so much his death, although that has to be acknowledged, and not so much his politics, but more how this man in his early thirties, who was adopted as a son into God’s holy family through trusting in Jesus’ holy blood when he was a teenager, and then went on to become and live out his daily life as someone who his wife, Erika, called “The most Godly man I’ve ever known.”

Although he called out sin and evil every day of his life post-conversion, he never failed to practice peace and forgiveness. Being honest with myself, I couldn’t have done what he did, because my nature is argumentative and desiring to lay blame, but even people who vehemently disagreed with him always said he spoke to them with honesty and civility and respect. As I said, I could’ve have done what he did.

He had many death threats, he needed protection for his family, but he never backed down or failed to speak Jesus at every meeting, gathering, and event, and he knew full well that people who speak God’s truth in this wicked and fallen world automatically have enemies and they walk with targets on their backs. But he never once stopped. He never once failed to answer God’s calling to be light in this world.

President Trump has told friends he’d expected Charlie to be president one day. Charlie, himself, told stories of people who tried to sway him into running for an elected seat and he wouldn’t even consider it; He’d say that he had the best job in the world, sharing the Word of God with untold numbers of people, especially those his age and now college aged.

Gen Z saw years unable to go to class, unable to go to church, who had proms cancelled, who had graduations cancelled, who had friends who grew lonely and depressed from the isolation, who had friends take their own lives because they couldn’t handle the despair, and who couldn’t go to those friend’s funerals for fear of catching and spreading a disease. Who watched politicians and health organizations lie to them, and then watch talking heads and reporters take what they were told as gospel and propagated the lies. They saw teachers, principals, and instructors choose to teach via video and refuse to teach in person. They saw doctors and nurses videoing themselves dancing in hospital corridors because entire floors were empty and they’d grown bored. They saw even clergy warn not to spread the disease. They were warned repeatedly to where a flimsy cloth mask that both them and the people telling them to wear them knew full well were useless against the virus. They stood six feet apart at grocery stores. They were forced to get stuck with needles over and over again. They saw news reports of 17-year-old boys die of heart attacks in football games and young mothers lose the ability to speak coherently or walk without aid.

They saw years where their world lost its mind and its hope.

Charlie told them they could hope, that they were seen, that they were loved, and that they had value. He shared Christ’s love and Good News and corrected the worldly when they either knowingly or unknowingly spread lies.

And he hated the sin, but never failed to love the sinners.

I thought about his example and decided that I had to try and live by it. That lead me to consider one of the people in this world whom I’m most intensely hateful of needs Christ’s love and forgiveness, also.

So I prayed that, although I want the shooter to be found and justice done, I also prayed that he come to know Jesus like Charlie did. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but before he, too, one day stands before God’s Judgment Throne he’ll have Jesus step out from the side and say, “All charges are dropped, I’ve already saved him.”

And although I hope it happens with enough time left in his life to be able to understand and grieve. For this terrible act he’s done, I hope more that one day he’ll come face to face with Charlie, and the two will hug like the long lost brothers they are.

My plans for the future include woodworking.

Posted on Friday, June 6th, 2025Monday, June 9th, 2025 by Charles

Since I retired, I have a lot of free time on my hands. And that may be great for a month or so but after that, it’s difficult for me to fight off depression. For a while, I considered opening a cat café because I wanted to see unadopted cats adopted, plus, I just like working around cats.

Well, I discarded that idea after having spent nearly $3000 to go to a coffee school in Arlington and incorporating it as an LLC, primarily because I realized how much work it was gonna be, how expensive it was gonna be, plus there’s a word of a competitor coming into town, which would steal my selling point of being the only one in town. Before you ask, no I don’t know any more information about this other cat café from Oklahoma, so don’t ask.

Now what I am trying to do is to put together an artisan woodworking shop in my apartment garage. It too, is going to require a lot of work, but in the beginning, it’ll be primarily for my learning my craft. And consequently, it’ll be giving me something to do plus a couple of furniture items out of it. There’s a lot to be done to prepare for it: degreasing and stripping the floor of the garage; Getting a new circuit added for the apartment at my expense; and figuring out a way to distribute electricity across the garage from a single outlet to multiple power tools; plus lighting, plus ventilation. And that’s before I pounded the first nail.

Still, it gives me something to occupy my mind and one day may turn into a hobby, and then later that hobby may turn into an artist in a business where I work when I feel like working or can work.

Now I’m really retired

Posted on Sunday, June 23rd, 2024Saturday, October 12th, 2024 by Charles

Back in late October of 2022, I wrote that I considered myself retired, but I still drove for Uber, Lyft, Hitch, and a couple of other gig economy companies. As these companies got more and more greedy, keeping larger and larger percentages of fares while almost entirely eliminating any bonuses, I found that I was increasingly draining my energy driving for these assholes and not making shit.

I fell into severe depression, exhausting therapies like standard Talk Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, and even Eye Movement Desensitisation, and Reprocessing therapy, to the point the VA wouldn’t even schedule anything for me. I ended up going to Family Services for talk therapy and liked the therapist, who is an ex-Marine, going so far as going to about 4 sessions with him before he was let go or quit or downsized or whatever. I have been on 450 mg of Wellbutrin every morning and 20 mg of Lexapro, an SSRI, every night for months now. I was on Zoloft for less than a week but I told my psychologist, “Screw this!” after just a few days because I was straight-up hallucinating and I refused to take them anymore.

My mood was lifted tremendously when I woke up one morning and happened to check my bank account balance, something I’d been doing frequently as I worried more and more about coving my bills, and I was shocked and amazed when I saw my checking account balance as $44,527.84. My jaw dropped and I quickly looked up who might have deposited that much money. I saw the deposit came from the Department of Veterans Affairs and was the amount of $43,348.48. I then remembered that I had filed a Disability Claim with the VA. Although I had previously been awarded 10% Disability a month before and had been happy with the $338.49 I had been receiving just a month prior, I wondered if possibility there had been a change? Or a mistake?

I quickly logged into my VA app and looked under claims and read for myself that I had been awarded 100% disability and would be receiving $3,737.85/month on the 1st of every month for the remainder of my life. The $43,348.48 was backpayment for the nearly a year since I’d originally filed. This in addition to the $1,328/month that I received for partial Social Security on the 2nd Wednesday of every month. So, in the blink of an eye, I was to receive $5,065.85/month from the federal government, tax-free, for the remainder of my life! Also, I’ll get a cost of living increase every year on both the VA and the Social Security payments every year going forward (usually about 3%) and I’m due to apply for full Social Security in about 1 year. Plus, I won’t have any doctor copays or have to pay for prescription medications, I’ve begun to apply for a Disabled Veteran license plate enabling me to park in any handicapped parking space (if there are any available, San Antonio is a huge military and military veteran city, so the parking is first come, first served,) plus I’m allowed on practically any military base in the U.S. with base exchange and commissary privileges, plus I wouldn’t have to pay any property taxes in Bexar County if I were to buy a home. (More on that in a minute.)

So, my first order of business was Dave Ramsey’s Baby Step #1 and I transferred $1,000 to my savings account as an emergency fund. Then I paid the remainder of $13,525.44 on my Piece of S… my car, I paid off roughly $4,000 in car repairs and one written-off debt (I’m challenging another one.) I’ve paid back several friends. I spent roughly $3,000 on a new iMac (don’t judge!) I bought a boatload of cat stuff (water feeders, cat tree, toys… you name it.) I bought a huge painting (photo?) of a Texas sunset over a field of bluebonnets. I got the car detailed. Gone through a couple of gallons of gas. Been out to eat quite a few times. Paid my rent, electricity, and mobile phone (really my only two remaining bills) over a month in advance, and moved nearly all that remained into a long-term savings account that invests in Exchange-Traded funds (EFTs, sort of like mutual funds but no brokers and no fees.)

I thought about buying a townhouse, but most of those have the bedroom(s) on the 2nd floor, and I’m tired of climbing upstairs, so I started looking into houses. After a few weeks, I discarded that idea because, let’s be honest: I’m a 64-year-old man who’s had two heart attacks (everything’s under control now, thanks for asking.) Am I really going to outlast a 30-year loan? I don’t think so. I also don’t want to mow the yard, repair the leaky sink, and all of the glorious stuff that comes with home ownership. Who cares about equity at my age?

So, my plan now is to move to a nearby gated apartment complex with a two-bedroom, cat-friendly, apartment on the 1st floor and attached single-car garage, for less than I would’ve been paying for a mortgage and insurance. I plan on moving before the end of 2024. No yard maintenance and the only things I’m losing is being able to cut a hole in the wall or repaint.

I’m also making some other retirement bennies: I have a rough idea about taking a cruise with a balcony cabin either in the Eastern Caribbean or a transit from California to Hawai’i or vice-versa. I’m an old salt sailor and I miss the open ocean. I could care less about the drinking or the rock wall climbing or the dance shows or the lounging around the pool or any of that other stuff. (Although I’ll no doubt enjoy the restaurants.) I’ll probably spend the majority of my time sitting on the balcony reading or using my MacBook Pro. I may not even go on the shore excursions.

Another thing I’m planning is trading the Ford Focus (I will never own another Ford for as long as I live) for the $23.77 I could get for it and buy a new or new-for-me SUV, likely a Toyota Corolla Cruise Hybrid and next Spring I’m planning a road trip to Raliegh, NC via San Jacinto to see the San Jacinto Battleground and Monument, then a stop at a Johnny’s Pizza along I-30 in South Louisiana no doubt, Baton Rouge, Biloxi, Mobile, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Savannah, Fayetteville, then Raliegh to search for genealogy records on my surname Stricklin. I might spend a few days there, then move Southwest to Rockingham, NC, where my 4th great-grandfather and grandmother owned property for certain, and maybe other relatives, also. Then to Charlotte, Nashville, and finally to Lutts, TN where I have Stricklin relatives buried. Then South to Starkville to visit my Alma Mater, Mississippi State University. Then to Shreveport/Bossier City to spend a few days visiting with my sister and likely seeing where I was born one last time. Then home through Tyler, Corsicana, Waco, and New Braunfels. 3,133 miles plus any additional for visiting, etc. If I were to drive it non-stop it’d take me 48 hours, but I plan to take my sweet time. If I want to stop, I’ll stop. If I want to get a hotel room, I’ll get a hotel room. If I want to spend a couple of days researching in an archive or library, I’ll spend a couple of days researching in an archive or library.

If you’re wondering who’s going to be looking in on my not-yet-adopted cat, I’ll hire professional cat-sitters to feed, refill the water feeder, clean the litterbox, sit and play with him/her twice a day. I’m not going to ask my cousin or one friend that I currently have in San Antonio to make time for my pet, not when I can rely on professionals who love cats to do it, especially after forming a bond over the several weeks I’ll be gone. The same thing when I take the cruise.

I’m not sure if I’ll do a lot of traveling after that. I’ve always wanted to drive West to Los Angeles, like the old Route 66, but I may not want to drive much anymore after my road trip.

So having no debt and being financially independent is very nice, and has mostly alleviated my depression. Yes, I will resume tithing, I just have to settle on a church first. I’m joining a small group of Verse-by-Verse Fellowship Tuesday night, so we’ll see if that’s where I settle.

I am still procrastinating a lot on cleaning up, taking out trash, filing away files, etc. When I’m not going to the doctor, eating, or playing games, I’m mostly sleeping. I’ve been mulling over various hobbies that I could pick up including more Ancestry research and/or learning to play an instrument such as an electric bass. Dunno.

I mean with my psychiatrist Tuesday morning to I’ll be sure and discuss all this with her. I don’t think it’s depression although I do have a pretty short-term, dystopian view on things, but I’m not depressed about any of it. It’s all out of my control. Why worry?

One thing I do know about being a senior and financially independent that I love: I can now cuss anytime I want, say anything I think, and not caring a lick about being canceled. Oh, and I left out something: I now carry a concealed carry license again and I’m building my own AR-15, so I also don’t have to worry about defending myself.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can rent it for a while.

So I’m retired

Posted on Friday, October 28th, 2022 by Charles

I started receiving partial Social Security benefits (such a strange word for money being given back to me after paying into the system for 40+ years) last month and I must say that it has eased my financial concerned immensely.

I’m also getting out and earning more money driving for Uber (almost) exclusively. I think I’ll have to be careful not to earn more than $21,240/year lest I lose my partial benefits until I turn 67 when I’ll receive the full amount, anyway. $21,240/year translates to $408/week, and I can earn that doing Uber in my sleep. I am set to receive $1,184/month which equates to $14,208/year. I’m told that those earnings are taxable as income, which I don’t fully understand because I’ve already been taxed as income when I originally had taxes withheld on my gross income at the time, didn’t I? Now I have to pay income tax on top on income tax? I’m so confused.

So, $408/week is all I’m allowed to make with Uber which translates to about $100 for 4 days/week.

Bottom line is: I’m thinking that, although I’m now on a “fixed income,” I should be able to breathe more easily until I die, which I keep thinking is sooner rather than later.

An update

Posted on Wednesday, October 12th, 2022 by Charles

I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time. My bad. Matt Mullenweg said at a WordCamp many years ago about how microblogging platforms like Facebook and Twitter might diminish regular personal blogs. I think there’s some truth to that.

I rarely post on the leftist echo chamber that Twitter has become. Still, I do post quite a lot on Facebook, even though I keep my religious and political views relegated to a private group of somewhat like-minded people. They may not always agree with me but at least they acknowledge my rights to believe and speak them without calling me any of the “-ist” pejoratives.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been posting to my own blog. That, and potential employer’s HR departments now read people’s Facebook and blogs, lest I be passed over for a job that I want because of something innocuous that I said 7 years ago or something. As I’ve sort of semi-retired now it’s less of a problem, but it’s still a problem.

For example, I’ve recently applied for a Help Desk position at UTSA. That’s the University of Texas at San Antonio for you non-San Antonians. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get it, of course, but if that happens I’ll just keep paying the bills with Uber and Social Security.

That’s another thing in my life these days: I’m receiving partial Social Security benefits. I’m 62 now, but I applied for early benefits and I have to say, getting back what I paid to our bloated federal government is quite helpful on the pocketbook. If I get the UTSA or pretty much any other job it’ll put me over the $19,000/year threshold and I won’t get any more benefits until I’m either 67 or go back to making less than the maximum allowed again, but if I do get such a position, my annual income won’t need it. It’s kind of a nice cushion.

Of course, I still fear we’re headed toward a worse recession than we’re in right now, or maybe even a depression. I’m not worried about it because there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it except being as frugal as reasonable and, when the opportunity allows, stuff income away in gold or Bitcoin or both. Health-wise I’ll be screwed, especially if the VA or the USPS goes down, but if either of those happens, we’ll all be screwed, not just me.

I try to remember a phrase that has helped me tremendously when I suffer from my major depression: “None of this takes God by surprise.”

My take is everything collapses and a New World Order is instituted to recover from it, either way, I’ll see Christ’s face sooner rather than later. Either He’ll come again, or I’ll die (probably in opposition) and see Him that way. It’ll be good to see Mom & Dad, Mimi & Paw Paw again, plus I’ll get to hang out with the Apostle Paul, and Peter… heck all of the Apostles. It’ll be epic!

I’ve got nothing else major to share: My body’s starting to hurt in places where it didn’t hurt before, some equipment doesn’t work anymore (just your imagination on that,) Sharon is encouraging me to find a less expensive first-floor apartment here or elsewhere and I think I agree with her. I bought a dashcam to mount on the car’s dash because it better ensures my personal safety and might even lower my car insurance, I’ve ordered a replacement logic board for my mid-2012 MacBook Pro and as long as I don’t botch the replacement I’m fairly certain that it’ll fix the problem where it shuts off at random and sometimes doesn’t even start up. I’ve been making these 10-hour-long videos of ambient noise (cat purring, air conditioner, gentle rain, light ocean waves, etc.) and posting them on YouTube because people use stuff like that to fall asleep and I hope to be able to create a passive income stream by monetizing them, but that’s a long way off. I keep talking about working on the Texas history podcast but never seem to find the time and the energy at the same time.

That’s about it. I’ll try not to be a stranger in the future.

On turning 62

Posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 by Charles

I am sixty-two beginning today.

Sixty-two.

I have to let that sink in.

I have been alive 62 years. 744 months. 22,645 days. 32,608,800 minutes. I have made 62 revolutions around the sun at about 1,037 mph.

When I was born there was no Internet. Man hadn’t yet walked on the Moon. There was one telephone per house and it was connected by a cable. Videos played on these things called “televisions” and there was one per household, the video was black & white, and everything was live as it happened.

Eisenhower was president. A gallon of gas was $0.31 and it contained lead in it. Adjusted for inflation that’d be about $2.97/gallon. Disneyland in California didn’t exist, much less the various DisneyWorlds that exist today. Probably no one you had ever known had taken a flight in a commercial airplane. Schools were still segregated. You could not buy beer or any alcohol on a Sunday in most jurisdictions. I’ve held 14 different jobs.

It’s been a long, crazy life. I even applied for Social Security early.

I’m old.

You never think of yourself as getting this old. Like in the Matrix, you see yourself as your residual self, usually in your mid-twenties. That’d be 3 lifetimes ago for me now.

And I cannot honestly say that my life is the way that I would have liked, but it’s the result of my choices along the way.

To that, I give you xxx things I’d explain to my 6-year-old self:

Start wearing glasses at 6-years-old, not 12.
Don’t talk your parents out of braces. They’ll suck all through high school, but you’ll thank me later.
Brush your teeth and floss twice every day.
Leave your sister alone.
Shut up. Seriously, shut up.
Study, study, study.
Learn to like vegetables.
Don’t ever let soft drinks touch your lips.
In 6th grade do not romantically pursue you-know-who.
Instead, maybe pursue the little girl your parents used to bathe together. Even today she’s cute and sharp as a tack. (And married and you’d argue politics with her a lot, but hey! I’m talking to my 6-year-old me, leave me alone!)
Architecture is not for you. Maybe try computer programming when they come on the scene. Either that or business. Or history, and get a doctorate in that.
Save every paystub that you ever get.
Save as much money as you can. Invest it when the number gets big enough, but don’t invest everything you have.
“Live like no one else so when you’re older you can live like no one else.”
Pay yourself first.
One word: Tithe.
Stand up straight.
Stop using filler words.
Stop looking down all the time.
Listen more than you talk.
Be friendly to everyone you meet, but choose your friends wisely.
Read. Read some more. Then read some more. And then more.

I’ll try to add more as I think of them.

As The Ruin Falls – God never promised us freedom from pain

Posted on Monday, May 24th, 2021Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 by Charles

I periodically have to remind myself of something:

God may not always have my best interests at heart.

At least not as I understand them.

He never promised me joy. He never promised me freedom from loneliness. He never promised me a life with purpose and meaning. He won’t even promise me my next heartbeat or thought.

The same can be said of you. Show me anywhere in the Bible where God promises us the high life, and don’t use Jeremiah 29 11 as a relevant scripture because that promise wasn’t made to each of us individually… back up and read Jeremiah 29 4 first, This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon … So Jeremiah 29:11 was a promise specifically to the Jewish people who were brought out of bondage from Egypt during the Exodus, not you and I.

But back to my premise: God never promised us a pleasant, Earthly life. And to Christ-followers, He promised the exact opposite. Because of the Fall, we all live in a world of disease and pain, but to the Christ-follower things are even worse,

“Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. John 15:20 (Partial) NIV)

Before you accuse me of being all negative and dour, please note that God did promise to be with us throughout the suffering, so there is some hope.

But my point is that God doesn’t say He’ll shield us from the worst The Enemy brings to Earth. He just says He’ll get us through the trials and suffering.

A quote attributed to Mother Teresa of Calcutta goes, I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much. That is pithy and funny, but not accurate. God also never said He would never give you more than what you could handle. He did say

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1st Corinthians 10:13 NIV

I believe He does allow temptation that may only be endured when we lean on Him for strength because if we attempted to face down the temptation on our own strength, we’d fail. Every. Single. Time.

The reason I’m dwelling on these thoughts tonight is that I’ve come to believe that I’m addicted to abusing the worst addiction man can face: Food.

Why is food the worst addiction known to man? Mankind doesn’t require (unnecessary & abused) drugs to survive. We don’t require gambling to survive. We don’t require porn to survive. We don’t even require sex to survive. But just try going more than a couple of days without food and you’ll begin to see that food is as necessary to survive as air.

Ultimately an addiction of any kind is a coping mechanism to avoid or dull pain. Pain is a byproduct of suffering. And humans will always suffer because of the introduction of sin.

One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis, and one of my favorite Lewis writings is a poem about suffering titled, ‘As The Ruin Falls.’ There’s debate about what the author meant or even whom it was addressed to, but I believe it was meant to be addressed as a prayer to God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvOrVv19sJk

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek–
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

I won’t pretend to understand all of the poem, but this is what I take from it:

1. It is my nature to always think of myself and my well-being above all others, including my loved ones, and yes, even God.

2. It is also my nature to want to be comfortable and enjoy life.

3. I talk about what love is and how I want to be loved, but I don’t really know what love is because I can’t think of others first and I avoid pain and suffering.

4. The only way to know love is to be willing to risk loss and self-sacrifice, and as long as I put myself before everyone else I’ll never really understand love.

5. The only way to grow is to risk something knowing full well the cost of growth is almost always pain and vulnerability.

The author closes with the realization that God allowing suffering in his life ultimately serves to inform him of the importance of suffering as a catalyst for self-realization and learning.

Another maxim that I feel I have to remind myself of often is that a 100% struggle-free, suffering-free life would be extremely boring because it’d not only be monotonous but there’d be no growth because there’s be no challenges. So my goal is not to give in to temptation or give up when faced with problems, but instead to ask God for help in all things and see problems for what they are: Opportunities for growth.