My Dear Mogslopper,

News of my departure from this blog have been greatly exaggerated. Orders from Below stated that, for now, our strategy should be to blend in with the otherwise seemingly innocuous blogs already in existence. Until we've been granted permission to do otherwise, I will simply attempt to ignore the sentimental hogwash that passes for a post on this particular blog. I noted some days ago that your patient is a dyed-in-the-wool Worrier. The thought of such an exploitable weakness in your patient reassures me that his belonging in the Church will have a much smaller impact than we initially thought. Indeed, this particular habit is the plateau of vice that leads to the lofty mountains of many other choice deviances. Unfortunately for you, Mogslopper, Worry is nearly as tedious for spirits such as ourselves as Lust or one of the other habits we, being incorporeal, are immune to. You will thrill with his agonies; you will bore of the tempting to worry. Humans are, as you no doubt have experienced for yourself, angellic creatures ensnared in a temporal dimension. They call it Time or Life or some other monosyllabic word. Only Death or direct intervention from the Enemy or someone on our Side can afford them the clarity of perception that we take for granted Downhere. (You see how that rush of clarity surprises them so when they arrive here!) Because Time only travels in one direction for them, they experience it the way that a salmon experiences a rushing river: they struggle to stay in one place while the stream of Time washes over them inexorably and at times imperceptibly. Worry is one of the most ridiculous of vices because it is a vice of control. And, obviously to anyspirit in Our World, a human controls Time the same way a salmon controls the river it navigates. In other words, it is an impossibility of scale and quality. Scale because the stream of Time is larger and longer and more unwieldy than any other material. Quality because Time is of a different order than material. Time is subject to nothing. We have precious little control over it; humans have none. It is as ridiculous for a human to worry about the passage of time as it is for a salmon to swallow the river. No doubt, being far stupider than a salmon, you will be amused at your patient's attempts to do just that. But I hear your interjection: that it is not Time Itself that your patient frets over; instead, it is an event within Time. Your man worries that this event will or will not come to pass and the eventuality or uncertainty of it makes him writhe. Do you not see, however, that the event is as firmly within Time as your patient is himself. He can no more control it than he can Time. And it is control that drives him mad. He wishes to control the event and, being incapable of that, also--as a happy chance--loses control of his emotions and perspective. He sweats, curses the night, and--if you are there exacerbating the situation--snaps at his wife and children, colleagues and friends. Your patient's will is so bent at the future that he is incapacitated in the present. You can be sure that you're man's future focus will have him completely out-of-joint here; he will be quite unable to perform the most basic acts of Charity in the here and now. We know, even if your patient cannot see it, that in his desires for control--the desires that cause him the greatest, most luscious inner turmoil--he challenges the lovingly laid plans of the Enemy. The Enemy has assured His Followers that their best interests are His concern. Your man, however, desires that his own plans be followed. He could not know, for instance, that the Enemy does not wish your patient to acquire great wealth lest he become numbed and then controlled by avarice. (Controlled by us through the means of avarice, would be a better way to put it.) Because of this ignorance, he worries about wealth and means to obtain wealth. Your patient thereby never questions his desires for wealth and security because he assumes they are innocuous parts of his own plan and are not in conflict whatsoever with the Enemy's plan for your patient. Therefore, when his desires go unfulfilled, he sees it less of an answer to prayer than yet another occasion to distrust the Enemy. And now we enter the much more pleasant territory of Idolatry. If you can cultivate your patient's sense of entitlement in the midst of Worry--a statement such as "I deserve this or that" would suffice--you are well on your way toward total domination. The moment when all Hell rejoices, however, is further still: when a patient recognizes the Enemy and the sickening beneficence of His plans and the ultimate Goal of Life and Time and still says, Not Your Will, but Mine be done. Yes even Worry--seemingly pointless, not too devilish--can over time and repetition become a portal toward depravity. See that it becomes so in your patient. We shall rescue him from the Church yet. Affectionately, Your Uncle