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  • Singing Without Words

    Singing Without Words
    2026/08/30
    Eric reflects on Jesus' cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), and discovers it isn't a line Jesus composed himself, but the opening words of Psalm 22. Drawing on a UK pastor who leads prisoners in writing their own psalms, the viral footage of a dementia patient roused to song by music from his youth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's reflection that the Psalms are the words God gives us when we have none of our own, he asks why song reaches us in a way doctrine and story can't. He closes with an invitation: pray a psalm, or sing a song, right where you actually are, even in the mess, the anger, or the dark.

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    16 分
  • Not My Will, But Yours

    Not My Will, But Yours
    2026/08/23
    Julia turns to the Garden of Gethsemane and the most uncomfortable hours of Jesus' life, where comfort shows up in an entirely upside-down way. Drawing on Mark's Gospel and W. H. Vanstone's The Stature of Waiting, she traces how Jesus moves from actor to the one "handed over" — the God who need not suffer choosing to become "object," by his own initiative. The reflection sits with a hard question: what does it mean to lay down our right to ourselves, to pray "not my will, but yours," and to trust God's goodness from a place of weakness rather than strength? It closes with Julian of Norwich's words that Jesus could not yet say in the Garden — that all shall be well.

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    18 分
  • Consider the Birds

    Consider the Birds
    2026/08/16
    Julia explores a phrase tucked into the Sermon on the Mount: "The eye is the lamp of the body... if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light" (Matthew 6:22). She traces the Greek word emblepō — to gaze, to look intently — through Jesus' invitation to "consider the birds of the air" and into the courtyard where "the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter" after his denial. Anxiety, she suggests, is a disease of vision: what we fix our attention on shapes what fills us. She invites listeners to consider what has held their attention this week. Closing prayer: "In the busyness of this day, grant me a stillness of seeing, O God..." — a prayer by J. Philip Newell, from Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayer.

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    14 分
  • Apocaloptimism

    Apocaloptimism
    2026/08/09
    There's a word for wanting to fix a broken world and quietly suspecting it's beyond saving, at the same time. It's not in any dictionary. A documentary made it up this year: apocaloptimism.

    Eric ran into the feeling twice in one week: once watching a man methodically pick up trash from a roadside ditch that would fill right back up within days, and once catching himself in it, admitting his own uneasy mix of hope and dread while wading into work on artificial intelligence.

    Both moments point back to something older than the word, something Jesus's own followers felt watching a man who "went about doing good" end up dead like a failure. The answer isn't optimism. It isn't pessimism either. It's something else.

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    16 分
  • And When You Return

    And When You Return
    2026/08/02
    Julia reflects on Jesus' words to Peter on the night of his betrayal: 'Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.' She explores what it means to be shaken, personally and corporately, and how Christ's intercession meets us in seasons of failure and testing. Drawing on Miroslav Volf's writing on embrace, she invites listeners to stop striving for control and yield instead to the comfort and restoration Christ offers. She closes with a prayer for when the sky feels like it's falling.

    Read the reflection and listen to the audio at https://pickerill.casa/comfortable-words/and-when-you-return


    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    15 分
  • Finding Your Way Home

    Finding Your Way Home
    2026/07/26
    Finding Your Way Home — Matthew 14

    Eric's first Comfortable Words: on being harassed and helpless, the temptation to build a shelter in the valley or an altar on the mountain, and Jesus's invitation to keep moving — all the way home.

    References the song "Guiding Light" by Foy Vance.

    Read along and subscribe: https://pickerill.casa/comfortable-words

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    18 分
  • Where Is Your Soul?

    Where Is Your Soul?
    2026/07/13
    Julia introduces "The Comfortable Words," a way to let Jesus' words comfort and strengthen you. She leads a "location exercise" to notice where your soul is right now and to picture your current spiritual landscape. Julia explains the Anglican "comfortable words" from the Book of Common Prayer, shaped by Thomas Cranmer to offer fortitude after confession, and highlights Christ's invitation to the weary and heavy laden. She then guides you to name what you're carrying, imagine offering it to Jesus, and closes with a prayer for comfort, protection, and peace.

    The Comfortable Words is written and recorded by Eric and Julia Pickerill.
    More at pickerill.casa
    © 2026 Eric and Julia Pickerill
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    20 分