Howdy. It's been so long, and I've been "away" since forever. And? And I don't know why. One minute you're connected with your friends, learning about each-other's lives and sharing insightful thoughts with one-another, and then the next minute you're disconnected, forgetting to go back to the place where you once were in life. I dunno. Anyway I thought I could at least write a New Year's Day entry. My old friend Dayna has suggested more than once that I write entries into this web-journal. A good idea. :-)

Well, so how long now has it been, I wonder, since I last wrote in this? Good heavens, maybe a year or more. Tisk tisk, how can that be....

I live with my Grandpa now. I was living with Morgan Whipple, Kenny Lewallen and Matt Simmons before. But there came this point where I felt like God was asking me to do something rather extreme (i.e. leave). Besides, I didn't like the direction my life seemed to be headed--I felt like things (school, Church, and maybe some other stuff) were moving too fast or something. I dunno, it sounds weird I know, but all in all I just wanted to be alone for a while and think more deeply about my life: so I moved to Chapel Hill. I lived there with a female roommate named Jeanne for about three weeks, and then (joy) I found I had the entire Condo all to myself. The experience was amazing: an entire home, all to one's self! I practiced my violin, started reading this book refuting Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" (it was cool, but a little deep for me, like an acquired taste maybe), fixed gimpy little recipes (I had this delicious Cajun-like pasta that I fixed: cheap and good), watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed often, and observed the Weather Channel as hurricanes of various sorts began introducing themselves to America. I also explored a little of the town I grew up in, and revisited old places I missed deeply. I also kept up with Fox News--the Michael Jackson case, those terrorist bombings in London, et al--and I also enjoyed Live 8. Live 8 was fun to watch.

Now, this is where things get "icky." This is probably an area where my Psychiatrist would say my Major Depression was surfacing (or something), and manifesting itself in the form of a mental breakdown. Either I have a mild form of Schizophrenia, or I had a case of Major Depression. Anyway, I'm not really sure about all this, it's really the first time anything like it has ever happened to me in my life: somehow I got it into my head that God wanted me to join the Freemasons, and for some strange reason I thought my landlord was a Freemason. In August my Landlord came to live with me (my peaceful and wondrous apartment no longer belonged to just me anymore), and I blindly asked him to be invited into the Masons. I don't know what was wrong with me: I just kept asking him. I really thought he was a Freemason. This was indeed one of the oddest and lowest points in my entire life: he would tell me "no, I'm not a Freemason," and then I thought he was testing me or something, so I just kept asking further still, altogether about 13 times. Well, I freaked him out (naturally), so he kicked me out of the apartment and I had to come live with my Grandpa.

Asking my roommate landlord over and over, for entrance into the Masons, maybe I was trying to pull a "Joan of Ark:" once at a young age she pestered a King into agreeing to see her, and just before she entered the Royal Courts this King, for amusement, dressed as a lowly peasant, and stood and blended into the crowd around the Royal Throne. This King had another person pretend to be King in his place. But then, in walked Joan: no one told her a thing about what had happened, yet when she entered the Court, instead of walking to the Throne, she turned right to the "peasant" King, kneeled, and kissed his feet. (I think she kissed his feet—not sure, but I know she identified him in the crowd at least) Well, I had it in mind that I could mystically "infer" things in the way of Joan. lol maybe I thought I was a Psychic. But I'll never try that again. Life gets confusing sometimes.

As it stands now, I am a Roman Catholic, and not a Freemason. I discovered that God didn't really want me to be a Mason the way I thought He did (otherwise my stupid, blind instincts about my roommate landlord being a Freemason would've been right on. But they weren't: I was wrong, so wrong.) My Faith in Christ is sufficient anyway; I don't need them (the Masons). Besides, (this thought has crossed my mind more than once) the Masons are a highly secretive organization said by some to worship Lucifer. I never intended to worship the devil; I thought the Masons were with God. Maybe they worship the devil, maybe they don't. Perhaps then, my entire struggle was against a *confusing* spiritual enemy. Maybe the devil was perplexing me. One can never really say.

So I got to my Grandpa's and my mental breakdown progressed further still: the Catholic part of me thought God was punishing me for trying to go into the Masons. I thought my world had somehow transformed into a sort of Purgatory. So when I was eating in front of my Grandpa and step-Grandma, I got off my chair, came to my knees, and started praying out loud for God to deliver me. A few other things happened which made my Grandparents think I was having deep mental issues, and so my Grandpa called a Behavioral Health center. I was admitted in the midst of a breakdown I was having. (Sigh) To anyone reading this, I cannot tell you how hard it is for me to write the words I'm writing. It's like confession or something. It's worse than confessing sexual sins to a Priest. How humiliating it is to say that you've actually been in a "mental hospital." But truth be told, I was saved by my experiences at the hospital: I found peace, relaxation, support, restoration, counsel, friendship, and above all love. lol there were some pretty cute nurses too! To be sure though, I wasn't in an insane place or anything like that: most of the people in there simply had Bipolar disorder.  

Please excuse my language, but: at that time I was fucked up. I didn't know anymore exactly what in Heaven God wanted of me to do in this life. I was perplexed. (I still am, a little) I felt guilty for trying to join the Masons, all the while in trying to join them, I was just trying my very best to do God's will. I have an amazing capacity for feeling guilt, which came into play in my breakdown: Before the 1980's any Catholic who joined the Masons were automatically excommunicated; so naturally a part of me was afraid I'd sinned gravely. I thought I was destined for Hell. But I never stopped trying to do God's will. Sure I'd sinned in little ways along the way, but I never stopped trying. Searching and trying. Yep. And this is for all those who may have felt like I abandoned them: I wasn't trying to abandon you or our friendship. I was always just trying to do God's will. That's actually the over-arching reason why I went to Chapel Hill in the first place, in June 2005. I read this scripture, "He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the Kingdom of Heaven." I read that line of scripture about not looking back, and I somehow got it into my head that God wanted me to lose my possessions (computer, desk, bed, papers, music CD's, et al) and seek a peaceful learning environment: Matthew 16:26 says "For what shall a man [truly] gain if he shall gain the whole world but forfeit his [very] soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Excellent scripture. (Not the exact translation, but close enough)

***Please note: I beseech thee, do not try going at the Scriptures all alone. My personal experience has taught me, that they can really mess you up if you interpret them wrong. Think about this seriously please: you take this piece of literature which you believe to be *infallible* and the Ultimate End of all things, but in so doing you unknowingly misread it: this will mess up your life. Why? Because the Bible, as we all know, is something you will, beyond the shadow of any doubt, take *absolutely* seriously; and if you're acting in real life so positively seriously on misinformation then there's no way around it: you're gonna get screwed up. I'm learning that the Bible is just too serious a thing to go at all alone.

I don't know if God really did want me to abandon people and things the way I did. I'm only human: there's no real way I can ever truly know whether I'm, in all entirety, obeying GOD. Who can tell me? Not even the Pope can tell me: he just deals with Doctrines of the Church. And not even a Priest can tell me what to do: the very best they can do is remind me that God loves me, and then ask me (ME, Jason Tittle—I, who am virtually clueless about all things pertaining to my very self and the Universe in which I live!) to examine whether I feel I'm "doing the right thing." (Sigh) As a Sixpence None the Richer song says, "It's so hard to know what I'm supposed to do." And it is. If there were ever an obstacle for me to overcome, it is this: knowing what in life I'm supposed to do, and where I'm supposed to go.

Well, so here I am this New Year's Day. In about one week I'll start school again at CPCC. Hmm… what else. Well, I'm reading this book now called Chosen by God. It's about Predestination. I won't say whether I believe in Predestination or not: one way or another we come to Christ, so who needs to argue about the details? I will however mention that the Bible in more than one place mentions Predestination: John 15:16, John 17:6, Eph 1:4, Eph 2:10, 2 Thess 2:13, Rom 8:29, 1 Peter 1:2, and I'll bet there are more.

Anyway I'm excited about school. And I'm thinking about buying a laptop. It'd take all my money, but... I just may go for it. Anyway I'll say, the year 2005 taught me a very valuable lesson (hearken hither and shall share it with thee): friends and family are the most important "things" in the universe. When you come crashing down in life, who can you rely on to help save you? You will rely on your family. The same is even true in the grand scheme of eternity: when the sky comes crashing down and your breath falls short once and for all, it will be your Royal Family--your one and only Father, Brother, High Priest, Savior and Lord Jesus Christ who whisps you away to Heaven. Jesus is your family. That's why He's saving you. You're His brother, His child, His baby lamb. There is no higher reality that that of family. GOD Himself is a Family: the Trinity is an eternally coexistent unity of three Divine Persons. The year 2005, for me, has taught me to never let go of family. And so never again will I run away from my loved ones. Never again will I run away. (I think I'll be in Charlotte for a good while.)