Errant Pilgrim
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Ezra Winter, mural of Canterbury Pilgrims, Library of Congress, ca. 1939
Whether you’re wandering, wondering or wrestling, welcome to Errant Pilgrim, a place to learn to read the New Testament in Greek, develop a sustainable prayer life, and engage with reflections on Christianity, contemporary culture, philosophy, art, and fiction. The Pilgrim’s wanderings in this time have roamed through the past in search of light and hope in the present, in this sorry time of war. Read the story of an ordinary Iranian woman, the memory of whose faith and kindness has not faded.
In the wake of Holy Week and at the beginning of Eastertide, here is a meditation on the Triduum.
Take a look at the Simply Pray section below for suggestions as to how to remember the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ at noontime every day or a fun prompt to pray at any time of day. Or check that section for an Arrow Prayer or 4-7-8 Prayer—new for Eastertide! May you be blessed as you encounter Our Lord in scripture and in prayer! Also new: a Level 1 Greek passage, on the baptism of Jesus.
Here is a thought from the great twentieth-century Biblical scholar, C. H. Dodd: ‘Prayer is . . . the activity of the Divine Spirit within us, but it would lose its significance for Paul if it did not ascend to God above us’ (The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, on 8.26-27).
Byzantine Psalter and New Testament, 1 Peter 1, 1079
Learn to Read New Testament Greek
If you’ve taken between a semester to a year of Greek (or have worked through more than half a beginning text on your own) but struggle to read when you open your Greek New Testament, you can find help with these guided readings. Level 1 readings gloss words occurring fewer than 30 times, set out the text using lining and spacing to show you the building blocks of the syntax and may lightly modify the text with easier equivalents of more advanced forms and structures. Level 2 texts give you the same help, but with unmodified text. Try a Level 1 text: or Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus and the temptation in the wilderness. Or read a composite text telling part of the story of the ministry of John the Baptist. Here is the story of the healing of the blind beggar, one of the sources of the Jesus Prayer. Or try this Level 2 text from Luke 24. If you’re short of time, dip in here for a short text, a Little Chapter.
Quick Tip of the Month: Read aloud. Even reading one verse a day will increase your ability to make reliable connections between the symbols on the page and sounds and this will help you to read more accurately, even when you’re reading silently. You’ll notice prefixes, infixes and suffixes with greater accuracy and attend to them more closely and you’ll see cognates more easily, enabling you to guess word meanings from morphemes and context. Try it!
Try a memory verse! There is much to be said for simply learning off by heart some chunks of any language you’re trying to learn: songs, poems, proverbs, anything. The student of Koine has an obvious option: learn a verse of the GNT off by heart. Here is a very short verse from Romans (8.37): ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν ὑπερνικῶμεν διὰ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς.
Interested in learning Greek but can’t take a class and don’t know where to begin? You can teach yourself. Check here for strategies. Use the Jump to Aids button below to find guidance about how to use these readings, general tips for language learning, silly mnemonics and more. Also, here is a review of a Reader’s Greek NT which I highly recommend for anyone learning Greek: a glossed text will greatly speed up the process of acquiring fluency in reading.
Simply Pray, for Pilgrims Who Want to Pray
Thought for the moment: I recently discovered the Daily Office of the community of Grandchamp, a women’s religious order in Switzerland associated with Taizé. I was struck by a line in one of their responsories: ‘la lignée du juste est en bénédiction’. That is: the lineage, or ‘legacy’, of the righteous is in blessing. It derives from Prov 11.17. The way I see it, this pithy saying can be taken to mean that the legacy each praying Christian leaves behind is the sum of blessing we have invoked. The pile of blessings we have uttered is the equivalent for those who pray of the pile of stocks and bonds of those who amass material wealth. What an encouragement to spend our time in blessing!
In the same spirit, here is a verse to murmur throughout the day: ‘You are the joy of all who seek you’ (Ps 70.4/5). You won’t find it quite like that in any English Bible (and the verse number varies), so this translation is my own, in the basis of what I found in all the French, German and Spanish translations I consulted. It’s too beautiful a verse to miss!
Do you struggle to find time for prayer? Or struggle to find a way to pray regularly that’s
sustainable? Have you felt intimidated by people who apparently just gush forth prayer
spontaneously when you have trouble finding words? Do you seem to pray about the
same predictable few things all the time? Have you ever wondered how the Bible could
possibly urge us to pray ‘constantly’? (Did people back then not have jobs to go to and
houses to clean?)
Simply Pray encourages the practice of praying throughout the day by beginning with very small steps and building from there. Check the links below for the first building blocks. New for Lent is this approach for using odd moments of the day: QC Prayer (for Quick and Complete—all right, cheesy, but based on an old, tried-and-true technique.) New for Easter is Arrow Prayer, short, pointed prayers for many moments of the day. Try also this approach to praying for people you find difficult. Or try this simple way of resting in silence with God.
Look here for an explanation of the Biblical ground of ‘constant prayer. Once you have begun your journey towards continual prayer by establishing a practice of a morning dedication (see below for suggestions) you can extend your practice by adding evening prayers and midday prayer. Here are suggestions for all these times of day.
If you’re worried about using words other than your own when you pray, such as set prayers or the words of scripture, ‘But they’re not my own words!’ may offer a new perspective on why set forms can be legitimate and helpful.
For further inspiration, here’s a review of wonderful collection of different ways to pray and another for books by a modern ‘mystic’ who teaches practical methods of constant prayer.
But here is a quick start to your journey towards prayer throughout the day: start by saying a dedication of self each morning. You can tie this to other habits already in your morning routine, like getting out of bed or having a cup of tea or coffee. Some possibilities for this dedication are given in the links above, but here is another:
Lord, you have made me for yourself. To you, I devote my heart and my whole life. Grant me grace so that I may today live in the awareness of your presence, follow Christ’s example and grow in faith, hope and charity. Amen
And here are a set of morning prayers, gathered together.
Federigo Zandomenghi, Young Woman Writing a Letter, 1874
Letters from a Strange Land
Quirky commentary on the issues of the day from the perspective of a ‘resident alien’, a
Christian in the post-Christian West and a person with two passports but no cultural
identity. Here you’ll find discussion of anything from contentious social issues, the
perplexities of education in an age slouching towards illiteracy, art, literature and
architecture, to reflections on the nature and deformations of discourse and dialogue.
In this sad time of yet another war, here is a reflection on the sad state of the society that is fomenting war, the Moral Deformation of Israeli Society, part two.
Whatever the depravity of which humanity is capable, however, by the grace of God, goodness prevails. Here is a reflection on the enduring power of love, a memory of the kindness of a stranger.
Here is reflection the rising threats to free speech around the world, but most recently in alarming fashion in Australia. On the other hand, here is a small victory for hope. Update 22.i.25: Australia just passed a vague ‘hate speech’ law that a senior official in the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is designed to stop pro-Palestinian protests in Australia. See here and here.
Read the third instalment of a series on argumentative fallacies, on slanting.
Or read an earlier one: Begging the Abortion Questions. Check here for reflection on the moral deformation of Israeli society. And here’s a review of a compelling novel about moral reasoning and confronting a painful past.
For all Letters, click on the Archive button at the top of the page.
Book Reviews
Here you’ll find reviews of books connected to all the concerns of Errant Pilgrim: learning New Testament Greek, prayer, contemporary issues and events, fiction and more. Check here for a review of an excellent compendium of a variety of ways to pray. Here is a review of a compelling work of fiction that addresses some of the root issues of our time, Christa Wolf’s evocation of a childhood during the reign of Hitler. Click here for a review of Zondervan’s A Reader’s Greek New Testament. Here is a review of four books by the remarkable Congregationalist ‘modern mystic’, Frank Laubach. Would you like a deeper relation with Scripture, so that you not only read it, but also pray it and, well, actually live in it, soak in it? Joshua Choonmin’s Kang’s gem, Scripture by Heart, will encourage you and give you practical suggestions.
For all reviews, click on the Archive button at the top of the page.
General Aids for Learning Greek
Here you can find guidance about how to use the readings in the Greek section above, conventions and abbreviations used in the readings, recommended books for learning NT Greek, general strategies for language learning, plus some memory aids and silly mnemonics. Here is a list of vocabulary in the GNT grouped by frequency.
About Me
Spent my childhood and adolescence bumping around five continents, in the process learning five languages at school (in addition to the two in use at home—parents were from opposite sides of the globe). Have spent adulthood in three countries on two continents. Trained in comparative literature and taught a language for a couple of years. Then trained as a theologian and taught theology and religion and the arts for a couple of decades. Now write—when I’m not reading, investigating, painting or cooking.
Click here for a story to loving the Greek New Testament.
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