Egeria (Aug 2021)

I read about this lady a little while back and made a note to find out more about her. Disclaimer: I’m hesitant to use the word ‘research’ after my experiences in college, so heads up that this is not a scholarly report!! LOL

Egeria (AKA Etheria) lived around the end of the fourth century. She was a nun who traveled to the Holy Land from Spain and wrote to her sisters about her 3-year travels. She reported back all that she saw, learned, and experienced so the ladies back home could have a glimpse as well. She traveled to Egypt, Israel, and Syria and visited places like Constantinople, Mt. Sinai, Mt. Nebo, Job’s tomb, and many of the sites the disciples wrote about. She also described some of the religious practices of the early church.

I won’t get on a rant about how skewed those practices were, I’m sure they thought they had good intentions. Just very Law and earn your salvation based. Effectively negating Jesus’ sacrifice… but I digress.

What intrigued me about Egeria is how much I can relate to her. While I’m not a nun (not Catholic and haven’t taken a vow of chastity, contrary to some belief), I am single, Christian, travel, and report back what I’ve experienced and seen. I feel like a modern Egeria! I learned about her after I started my photojournalism blog, which I might have named after her somehow.

I enjoy learning about women who made advances for the Kingdom, in the early church or otherwise. Maybe I’ll write about others… Men have done amazing things too, but don’t we hear enough about them? Jesus didn’t see women as 2^nd class, nor other cultures. OK, I’m about to fall into a rant so I’ll stop here (for now!).