Chapters 21-22 Questions

1. "The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured..." What does this mean? What does this mean to you?

• I think this means that the more Wormwood's patient makes claims on life, such as the time example given in the letter, the more he will feel hurt or angry when those claims have been taken from him. In the time example, if we were to think of time as our own, in that we own the time we have every day and are in control of it, we would become hurt if some other obligation caused us to "lose" time that we thought we had. The expression "waste of my time" relates to this too. So the more of these claims on life that Wormwood's patient makes, the more he will feel injured and this will lead to bitterness or anger. To me this also relates to time, because I noticed as I was reading this that I do think of time as my own and most of the time I do become irritable when it is "taken" from me. Time however, is not my own, I have no control over it. Time is God's, and it is a gift he provides for me everyday.