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Timshel: The Dignity of Choice

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Edited by Jim McCrory, Tuesday, 22 July 2025, 12:23

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Timshel: The Dignity of Choice

I always mention in my blog words that teach us what it means to be human. Timshel is one I have in my notebook. In Hebrew, it means “thou mayest.” Or “you may.” It’s a phrase I loved to hear from my parents when I was given the freedom to go with friends or some other liberty. It’s a small phrase, tucked into the folds of language and literature, but like a camel on the silk path, it carries the weight of eternity.

I encountered it in Steinbeck’s East of Eden, where it opens up like a key in the lock of human will. “Thou mayest” do right. “Thou mayest” choose the path of light. It does not say you must, nor does it say you shall not. It says: the choice is yours. And what a sobering gift that is.

I’m not happy with this world right now. I no longer read or watch the news. Why dwell on the hatreds, the quiet tragedies playing out behind closed doors? People exercising this freedom in wildly different ways. Some use it to love. Others weaponise it. And the frightening part? God allows it. He watches it unfold like the gardener who plants both wheat and weeds in a highland field and waits until the harvest.

Free will, then, is not just a philosophical concept. It’s the soil of our existence. It’s what makes us human—or not.

In this period before the great harvest, every life plays out on this level ground, and no one is coerced into goodness. That’s the thing about Timshel—it implies not only the possibility of righteousness but the possibility of rejecting it too. And that is where things fall apart.

The Bible tells us, at 2 Chronicles 16:9: “For the eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.”

Like a farmer observing his field over the growing season, He is watching and observing each one to see what we will do with life—with what outcome.

The Book of John draws a stark line: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life.” (John 3:36). There is no mention of eternal damnation here—just life or death. A death where one does not wake.

It’s not a punishment; it’s the logical conclusion of a life lived in rebellion against light. You can choose not to see life. You can turn your face from it, step by step, until the very idea of it grows dim.

But you can also choose otherwise.

Sometimes I wonder why God doesn’t intervene in the ways we expect. He doesn't suspend natural laws every time a good man suffers or step in to rewrite the ending when evil has the upper hand. He waits. Not with indifference, but with patience. Because love that is compelled is no love at all. And goodness that is forced is merely compliance. He honours our will because He made it in His image.

That’s what dignity is, isn’t it? The right to choose. The right to fall. The right to rise again.

It’s why, when Jesus stood before the rich young ruler, He didn’t argue. He didn’t chase after him with threats or promises. He let him go. “Thou mayest,” he said in silence. You may follow. You may walk away. It’s up to you.

As for me, I choose to believe there is life—not just biological animation, but life in the truest sense: eternal, vibrant, incorruptible. And it begins with this quiet, radical freedom. The kind that says: You are not a puppet dancing to your DNA. You are a soul with potential, everlastingly so.  Choose well.

Timshel.

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