“Erring Angels” Spray Paint and Paint Marker on Wood Panel.

“Err appears to derive from the Latin errare… by way of Middle English erre, French errer, Provencal and Spanish errar, and Italian errare.  Errare (“to wander, or stray about, to rove”) is cognate with the Gothic airzjan, which means “to lead astray”.  To err is to ramble, roam, stray, wander, like Chaucer’s “weary ghost that errest to and fro”.  Such wandering inevitably leads one astray- away from one’s path or line of direction.  To err, therefore is to “fail, miss, go wrong in judgement or opinion; to make a mistake, blunder, or commit a fault; to be incorrect; to go astray morally”; even “to sin.”  Err drifts toward: Errable (“fallible, being in error”); Errabund (“random”); Errancy (“the condition or erring or being in error”); Errand (“a message, a verbal communication to be repeated to a third party; a petition or prayer presented through another; a short journey on which an inferior-e.g. a servant, a child- is sent to convey a message or preform some simple business on behalf of the sender”)  Errantly (“wandering, prone to wander; wandering from place to place, vagrant, nomadic; irregular or uncertain in a movement, having no fixed course; irregular or eccentric in conduct, habit or opinion”)  Erratum (“an error in writing or printing”); Erre (“wound or scar”)…”

—Mark C. Taylor

“Erring, A Postmodern A/theology”

“To err is human, to forgive is simply not my policy.”

—F. Nietzsche