Natalie Bergman brings grief and joy to Union Chapel

A soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A musician wearing black sits on a chair in a desert holding her guitar.

Natalie Bergman.

In any other context, they would call this revival! A wild belle singing songs of worship and wonder in a chapel packed to the rafters with a diverse crowd of beautiful people in rapture at songs such as ‘Talk To The Lord’ and ‘I Will Praise You’. This is Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel.

Who? If you don’t already know, you need to know. Following three albums with Wild Belle, her debut solo album, Mercy, was a Gospel album written and recorded in response to the tragic death of her father and stepmother in a road traffic accident. Begun on retreat at a monastery, its lithe, light, luscious rhythms lift the listener from the valley of the shadow of death to the goodness and mercy found in the house of the Lord forever.

If Mercy equates to the direct songs of praise and witness found on Bob Dylan’s Gospel albums, then her latest release, My Home Is Not In This World, equates to those later Dylan albums (like Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind and Rough and Rowdy Ways) where faith infuses songs exploring life and love. Bergman has quoted T Bone Burnett’s distinction between songs about the light and songs about what you can see from the light. Mercy is the former and My Home Is Not In This World, the latter.

As a result, tonight, she takes us down paths of sorrow into the wilderness to find the light of God shining on us. At Union Chapel, a series of subtly lit arches ascend behind her and her band guiding our eyes upward until they reach the central back-lit rose window. The beauty of that light is where she takes us through the soulful spirituality of her songs. By the end, the joint is jumping with joy as we sing and dance to ‘Keep Those Teardrops From Falling’.

Why? Her super-melodic songs draw inspiration from the deep sources of sixties soul, including Motown, while being infused also with the rhythms of reggae and highlife. Her voice ranges from childlike wonder floating on a sea of sound to smoky sultry spirituality. In common with Nick Cave on Wild God, the source of her spirituality is a vulnerability and openness occasioned by the grief she has endured, an experience common to all of us, whether now or in the future.

She has explained simply and clearly how it happened: “When I began writing, I had already lost the greatest love I’ve ever had, so I had nothing else to lose. I went for it. I sang from the depths of my sorrow and I witnessed a little light while doing so.” As she concludes, “How could anyone have a problem with someone processing grief in a harmless way?” At Union Chapel, it’s clear that they don’t. Instead, what resonated with Bergman in her loss, also resonates with us.

‘Talk To The Lord’ quotes Psalm 23 – ‘Though I walk in shadows, I won't be afraid / I will fear no evil / For You walk with me’ – in order to state that:

‘When you are scared, reach out your hand

Talk to the Lord, talk to the Lord

If you are sad, He'll dry your tears

Talk to the Lord, talk to the Lord’

In ‘I Will Praise You’, she says ‘When I'm broken, I will sing Your name’, while ‘Shine Your Light On Me’ also quotes Psalm 23 in a prayer for light as she cries like a ‘mourning dove’ for her ‘greatest love’. ‘Paint The Rain’ documents difficult days but discovers that:

‘In this pain, you make me sing

When I am blue, you take me in

My little ways, they feel strange

You give me a little bit, and you take it away

You paint the rain’

In these ways, she has been enabled to live again and to find joy in family life, with My Home Is Not In This World finding its inspiration in the birth of her son, Arthur. When not lamenting lost loves, My Home Is Not In This World is grounded in the realities of home and natural life. The song ‘My Home Is Not In This World’ contrasts a prior life of glitzy glamour – her home no longer being there - with the life she has now found:

‘My home

My home is not in this world

My home

My home is not in this world

I want to go outside

Tell the trees that I love them

Open my eyes

See the children in the garden

Dancing underneath the sunshine

Swinging underneath the moonlight

Sing away your sorrow my little one’

It’s been said that her ‘greatest achievement is choosing to go against the grain’, a decision that includes her spiritual focus and proves the value of going counter to the culture. It’s also been said that her universal music ‘lives in the hearts and minds and souls of her fellow travelers; born again believers in love, joy, and music’s role as guiding light and lightning rod’. That was certainly the case at Union Chapel where she ‘let the sunshine in’ and we all experienced the everlasting light of love shining on us.

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

Pledge your support now

Review

Culture

Film & TV

Hospitality

Romance

15 October 2025

4 min read

From wheatfield to vineyard, can an ancient love story survive a replanting?

Ruth & Boaz finds new soil in rural Tennessee but struggles to grow

Giles Gough

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

A couple hold each others hands as they face each other.

Tyler Lepley and Serayah.

Ruth & Boaz is a contemporary version of the most memorable love story in the Bible. The film tells the story of Ruth, a young woman who escapes the Atlanta music scene to care for an elderly widowed woman. Not only does Ruth gain the mother she never had, she also finds the love of her life in the process.

The story of Ruth and Boaz is a straight up love story, and it serves as a much-needed respite from the biblical levels of violence in the books that precede and follow it in the Bible. So a modern update of the Ruth and Boaz story serves as good material for a heartfelt, sincere romance.

As part of Atlanta pop duo 404, Ruth Moabley (Serayah) is a talented singer who, after the death of her boyfriend and his father, is desperate to escape her menacing manager. Ruth makes the impulsive decision to join her late boyfriend's mother Naomi, (Phylicia Rashad) as they both leave Atlanta for a small town in Tennessee to start over from scratch. The only job she can find involves labouring at a local vineyard, leading her to owner Bo "Boaz" Azra, (Tyler Lepley) who falls for Ruth the moment he lays eyes on her. Ruth holds tight to her faith and slowly begins to accept love, but her past is soon to catch up with her.

One of the joys of adapting a Bible story is often the characterisation. Phylicia Rashad’s Naomi is a complex, contradictory figure whose manifestations of grief are not always that sympathetic, pushing away all but the most insistent of helpers like Ruth. As the titular character, we spend a lot of time with Serayah’s Ruth. Making her a singer helps to flesh out the character to an extent, but the scenes where her individuality gets to shine are notable by their infrequency.

Tyler Lepley’s turn as Bo Azra is perfectly serviceable. He’s essentially an idealised, handsome and muscled 40-year-old. Bo has a wealth of backstory; we’re told he served two tours in Afghanistan, then worked on Wall Street, and finally returned to his family business of the Azra Vineyard & Winery. Despite this, none of it really shows up in his characterisation. He spends his time being a generous boss, and an all-round basic good guy. All of which is great in real-life but can be a little staid in fiction. There’s very little about him to intrigue us, although questions have to be asked about how, if he’s so dedicated to making his business succeed, he managed to find the time to work on a truly magnificent set of abs.

In a departure from the original Bible story, Ruth begins as a casual worker on Boaz’s vineyard. This is a reasonable change, as the practice of leaving grain after the harvest for widows and orphans to collect just doesn’t fit in a modern context. But in a post #MeToo world, this does create a power imbalance. They attempt to address this power imbalance of employer and employee when Ruth refuses to let Boaz buy her a drink. However, Ruth’s resistance quickly recedes when Boaz introduces her to Rn’B legend, Babyface. In this world, if you want to date one of your employees, all you have to do is introduce her to a Grammy-winning super producer to break down her inhibitions.

All of these shortcomings suggest that the script needed a few more passes, and the saccharine voiceover feels like it’s trying to make up for that. Credibility at times takes a back seat to the gloss of the high production value as almost every other shot looks like it’s promoting a tourist destination. There are moments where it feels like the story is contorting itself in order to be a vehicle for Serayah’s singing talents; which, to be fair, are considerable. Nonetheless, a lot of the tension in the plot hinges on characters not telling each other incredibly important details because of convoluted reasons. It’s a trope that feels a little bit tired. On top of that, the pacing drags until it remembers it has to have a dramatic resolution, which it awkwardly rushes, making the ending feel somewhat unfulfilling.

Ultimately, Ruth & Boaz feels like a romance film made by committee, a Hallmark film with added Bible references and RnB cameos. One could argue that it shines a spotlight on African-American communities in rural America, but the brisk run-time prevents it from revealing anything new, and the light touch characterisation means we don’t really get anything original.

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

Pledge a gift now