My Dear Mogslopper,

Yes, yes. You have understood my instruction about Worry and Time correctly. And I am quite pleased with myself for your success with your patient. But in your glee at his gnawing anxiety (a lovely dish, is it not?), do not inadvertently neglect the underlying causes of his worry that may be used to advance our Cause. By and large, Churchmen are not angered by mere misfortune as much as they are when the misfortune is also conceived as an injustice. Usually, the amount of anger the throw at the injustice directly corresponds to the amount of personal stake the patient believes they have in the matter. In something that they have laid claim to, the sense of injustice and then anger may be great indeed. Note that we are not speaking of true anger at true Injustice. We are referring to the minor infractions that daily life makes upon the particular claims that humans stake during the course of their lives. As you have now noted in your patient, Time is a particular thing in which many humans claim a stake. Some, like your patient perhaps, view their entire day--the turning of their miserable planet upon its axis once around--as theirs. They exchange a good bit of it, usually between one quarter and one half, for the accumulation of wages or goods. Despite the willingness of the exchange, most humans regard this employment as a tax upon their day. Even if they enjoy their work and recognize its importance in their lives, they will complain about it as if their employer were deliberately stealing their time. But, in the sense we prefer, this could not be construed as an Injustice, and your man knows it. Interrupt the remaining half to three-quarters of his day, however, and you will see an irritable human, prone to rash judgments, unkind words, grumbling inwardly and outwardly. He is angered because he really believes this time to be his own, by which he means that he believes he possesses the time from the end of his sleep to the beginning of his next sleep. This idea of possession thrust down deep inside your patient's mind and spirit is the result of centuries worth of work from our Side. Most of the images on television, in the papers, the magazines, the billboards--and the myriad other methods of communication the rats have devised and we have manipulated--are all organized into a vast cacophony from which your patient extracts the idea that he has been justly doled out a quantity of time and energy to use as he pleases. The donation of some of this time and energy to work is a necessary evil, in his mind. The donation of some of his time to religious duties, relationships and the like he no doubt believes to be a saintly activity--though you may still want to remind him that there are "sporting events" that likely take place over "his" weekends that he wouldn't want to miss. The donation of any of his remaining time will likely be resisted; the amount of time seen as "defensible" and his correlative anger at losing it will depend on his temperament. Tempting your patient to irritability regarding time is touchy business. Should a human question this line of tempting, we are left with virtually no rational response. As we've already discussed, your man is a fish in the stream of Time and cannot call any bit of it his own. If the Enemy were to appear to one of His followers and require an hour, a day, or a year of service, none would resist. On the contrary, they would be willing to sacrifice the time and their absurd claim over it. Their expectation would be that His demands would be great and heroic and therefore worth investment and obedience. It is obvious to all in Hell that this is what He is calling them too daily. That they resist is due partially to the way He reveals Himself--He will not overwhelm them, even to carry out tasks for Him--and because they are so certain that Time belongs to them that they are loathe to give any away for any purpose other than the most worthy. If they only knew their Master was asking but ten minutes to listen to the broken soul on the other end of the phone or computer and then they would be free to do their hearts' bidding, we would have a much harder time building up walls of resentment, solitary longing, unrequited attention, agony--to say nothing for the tantalizing whisper of addiction and suicide. Why think of it, Mogslopper. If the twits would give each other more than a moment's unfettered consideration--because they are indeed asked to do so by the Enemy daily--we would have utter Harmony on our hands! We can't stand for that. Continue to massage your patient's misunderstanding that he justly controls his portion of Time and he will drift further from his neighbor and, thenceforth, from his God. To that End, Your Uncle