ABOUT THIS EPISODE
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
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
English
United States
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OTHER EPISODES IN THIS PODCAST
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, sha…
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…
Finding Your Way Home — Matthew 14Eric'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 sub…
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 corporat…
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