S1:E6 Confetti Cannons and Contemplation

Camille Hall-Ortega: From the time I was very small, worship was an integral part of my life. At the tiny age of three years old, I stood in front of my grandmother’s church in Memphis, Tennessee, a visitor no less, and sang, Jesus loves me, in front of the congregation. Worship, this word, this activity, this way of life that could sound so odd and foreign for those not familiar with it, became my haven. An act of surrender, a joyous celebration, an opportunity for gratitude, for reminders, for community, for sharpening my musical skills, for escape. Many of us spend our days bombarded by alerts, notifications from work, social media chatter, crowded Netflix queues, and requests from loved ones. And I wonder, in this world of hustle and bustle and busyness, where does worship fit? What should it look like? Should we view worship as an opportunity to quiet the noise in our lives? Contemplation, silence, reflection, they can all be hugely important, but is quiet worship?

From the H.E.Butt Foundation, I’m Camille Hall-Ortega, and this is The Echoes Podcast.
On today’s episode, we’re welcoming Jon Guerra, a celebrated singer-songwriter who crafts devotional music. Jon is ranked on multiple Billboard Charts, including ones for folk and Christian albums, and he composed music for the feature film, A Hidden Life. He’s achieved widespread critical acclaim, and he and his wife, Valerie, record, perform, and offer songwriting MasterClasses.

I’m here with my co-host, Marcus Goodyear. Welcome, Jon.

Jon Guerra: Thanks so much for having me.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Well, as you know, we are very, very big fans of yours and music. And we are not alone. You’ve a lot of folks who are big fans, but you have a pretty, I think, distinct way of describing your music. You call it a collaboration with quiet. What does that mean?

Jon Guerra: Well, that means that, I like to be different, and I like to describe music in weird ways, first of all. You know, I’m embedded in, because I write Christian music, I’m kind of embedded in an industry that I think has been co-opted by the spirit of hype and loudness and volume.

Marcus Goodyear: Yeah.

Jon Guerra: And what I’m trying to do with my music is cultivate a a different kind of space. And, it’s the kind of space that I think makes us most receptive to the voice of God and to our own quiet, whispers and murmurs. I think sometimes we are so estranged even from ourselves that it takes quiet to kind of remind us what we’re even thinking about x, y, or z or how we’re even feeling about our own lives. And so I with my music, I’m trying to go to that place myself, first of all, of quiet, of silence, figure out what’s there, and try to hear God there and write music from that space so that hopefully when people listen to that music, it draws them into that space themselves, and maybe they can hear a little bit of God for themselves.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Oh, that’s so good. But there was a lot there. I’m very intrigued by a lot of things. So I should tell you, I am a worship leader and have been a worship leader for years. And I’ve got some Baptist roots, but now nondenominational. But I’ve done the small church thing. I’ve done the megachurch thing. And then obviously now being a part of the H.E.Butt Foundation and getting to experience Laity Lodge, worship music can kinda run the gamut. And so it sounds like you’re saying we need a break from the noise and the loud because it gives us this opportunity to hear. But does that mean that there’s a right way to worship or a wrong way to worship? In your opinion, I would love to to hear more about it.

Jon Guerra: I do think there’s a right and a wrong way to worship. It’s the soul’s attentiveness to God is the right way. Trying to give God whatever we think God deserves, whether or not we we feel that or not, I very much believe in going through the motions. That then begs the question, what kind of motions are we going through? I think there’s something sane about kneeling, for instance. I think that, oh, you know, you kneel every day for a decade. I am of the persuasion that that does something to your own sense of your position in the world and before God. If you were to walk into a grocery store or a mall or any kind of public space, most likely there’s music that’s meant to get your blood flowing. And when we go into church and we hear music that maybe you’d hear at the mall, we hear a style of music that is also, it’s it’s doing the same kind of things to our humanity, to our personhood, then it just kind of begs the question, what exactly is the goal of of the music? I’ve been a part of all sorts of traditions myself. My dad’s a pastor, nondenominational church, Hispanic church, and I was at a larger megachurch for a bunch of years. And I do think that people are meeting God and worshiping God in those contexts too. But as I’ve kind of grown older, as I’ve noticed the way my own heart and soul is fatigued with noise, and I’ve sort of lost my at different periods of my life, lost my ability to pay attention to anything or lost my ability or find myself in seasons of depression and, disillusionment, the thing that doesn’t help me is loud hype, you know. And I think it’s the Proverbs or Psalms that say something when the heart is sorrowful, when the heart is grieving, it’s like there’s something bitter about rejoicing.
And, I found both solace, comfort, healing, and nourishment in recognizing that I can be completely still before God and that, number one, is enough. And number two, there’s actually, there’s not passivity there. There’s actually activity in being quiet and silent, especially in a world that is seems to be constructed to distract us. And because when we’re distracted, we spend money, and we eat more calories, and we click more things. And so I’m just trying to kinda go against the grain with my music because I think there’s something in Christianity that allows us that space and that is actually helps us find God there.

Marcus Goodyear: It just feels so insightful to think of church sometimes using music to hype the crowd. I get why you would do that because it brings people together. Right? It helps them focus. It focuses the energy.
It gets exciting. You want them to come back. If they’re excited, they’re more likely to come back. Was there a moment for you or or a season for you where you were in that hype mode at one of these previous churches and you were being called to something different.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. I was. I was a worship leader at a church and, I remember there was an Easter service where I was supposed to let off a confetti cannon. And I did it, and I left that I left actually, not that one. I left after the fifth service. I left kind of like, what in the world is going on here? I was kind of going through a period of depression. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my personal life with my family, and I just felt so estranged from whatever that was. And, I studied historical theology in college and knew about the value of silence and the contemplative tradition and decided I needed some more quiet in my life. So I decided I was going to spend my commute in quiet. And at the time, I was living in Chicago, and I was taking the train from the North Side to the South Side where my studio was. And it was about a thirty five minute commute. And I started spending that commute in in silence, like, not listening to anything, not reading anything. City’s pretty loud anyway. There’s the sound of the noise, but there’s also the sound of of just, you know, shuffling of feet if you’re in the city with people and there’s maybe you hear the trees on it from from my apartment to the train. And something about that period… I ended up doing that for about, I don’t know, eight or nine months before our daughter was born, and the silence kinda began to grow a little bit more. When I went into the studio, I wouldn’t turn on the stuff right away. I would kind of sit in a little bit of quiet. And my wife and I had been doing a little, rhythm of morning prayer together at that time as well, and that kind of morning prayer felt like it began to get a little bit longer. Like, we’d set a timer for a minute of quiet, and then it was two minutes and then five. And it just was a very rich thing for me. Also, I was writing my album Keeper of Days at that time and realizing I actually want to write music for this space and for cultivating this kind of thing in people. But that’s really, I think, as a songwriter and worship leader, frankly, I still lead worship in my church. This is kind of what I think I’m meant to contribute to the body of Christ is this just trying to facilitate healing for people. I think quiet and silence is healing for all of us living in this country, in this day and age, in the Western world at least, where we’re just we’re bathed in noise at all times.

Camille Hall-Ortega: I love that. I think it’s beautiful. And just hearing the stories of how you sort of tried out these practices that you kind of said, this doesn’t feel right. This very noisy take on things doesn’t feel right. And so just trying out those practices, I can tell how it moved you to where you are today.
I’m wondering I think for a lot of people, what you’re describing can sound a bit scary.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Camille Hall-Ortega: If I’m committing to times of silence, I don’t know what that looks like for me or means for me. Why do you think we are sometimes afraid of that quiet and that silence?

Jon Guerra: Well, two things. I think we’re afraid of it because I think we’re afraid of what’s there. I think also there’s a little voice in our head that’s saying if we don’t attend to the immediate responsibilities before us, then something’s gonna happen. The world’s gonna end. Our family’s gonna end. The bills won’t get paid. Some of that is real. Right? Some of that is, like, you know, there’s a lot to do as an adult, as a parent, as a married person, as an employee, but that voice is louder than it needs to be.

Marcus Goodyear: Jon, were were you always an anti-confetti cannon worship leader, or is that something that that developed? Like, in other words, like, is your desire for quiet reflection more of a personality trait? Or is it something that that has just comes naturally to you?

Jon Guerra: You know, there’s probably something about my personality that is more bent towards stillness and quiet, at least at this point in my life. But when I was younger, I was very much a believer in the sort of high impact services that a lot of megachurches are built around. High impact services in order to get people in the door, to get them feeling connected, get them in a small group. I don’t think that anymore. The confetti cannon never felt right to me. That always just struck me as just a little, like, I don’t know, like a caricature of joy or something. Yeah, just the the idea of a confetti cannon on Easter morning, I mean, it just it begs the comparison between Jesus coming out of the tomb and confetti coming out of the cannon. It just it’s it’s very- I mean, so you can see the logic. Right? It’s like, we need to celebrate this the way we celebrate the most important celebrations of our lives. So if your team is winning the Super Bowl, what do you see at the Super Bowl? You see confetti. You see people losing their minds.

Marcus Goodyear: Beer. You see beer. Did you have beer at the church?

Jon Guerra: Yeah. It’s true. No. Exactly. The problem with that, I mean, there’s so many problems with that that I see now, but the main thing is it I just don’t think that actually does justice to the reality of the resurrection as we experience it in our lives right now. I actually think the scriptures give evidence of what the reality is.

The resurrection was received first and foremost through tears. I mean, Mary, who received it, she received it through tears, and I think that’s probably more the reality. And then there was the majority of the time was spent trying to make sense of this thing that was unverifiable because Jesus was gone.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Guerra: And, what we’re doing in our churches and what we have done in a lot of those churches has given people a wrong expectation of what the Christian life should be and is and what our life with God is. When you go to an Easter service and and you hear Jesus is alive, confetti cannon, lose your mind in joy, then when you the the rug gets pulled out from underneath you, you are disillusioned, you don’t feel like the presence of God is near you anymore, you don’t think you believe anymore. The last place you want to go is the church because you’re like, “Well, that has nothing to do with me or my experience.”

I remember there was a couple years where it felt like everybody was deconstructing, everything was kind of up for grabs.

Marcus Goodyear: Yeah. I think we’re still there, Jon.

Jon Guerra: Maybe we’re still there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of it has more to do with people rejecting a version of Christianity that doesn’t make sense with their lives. And that I bless to the stars, please. If that’s not you, then great. That doesn’t need to be you, but that that’s not the totality of our life with God.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Exactly.

Jon Guerra: When we don’t give space for lament, for grief, for silence, for contemplation, it’s like wrong salesmanship. It’s like it’s the the bill of goods is, you know, you think you’re getting one thing and then you get another, in fact. You know, you get the dark night of the soul. You get, doubting. You get all these things.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Then you go, why don’t why don’t I feel like popping a confetti cannon like these other people?

Jon Guerra: That’s right. And and maybe this isn’t for me. Maybe I’m not saying, oh, my goodness. How many of us have felt estranged by being at church, you know, when that happens?

Camille Hall-Ortega: I just love the the thought of these practices of quieting the mind and quieting the space and the noise just kind of allowing it to dissipate. I find myself even just even just in times of like, kind of wanting to close close a chapter or complete something, even in simple ways. You know, I have a commute, I commute from San Antonio to Kurville for work. And so I listen to a lot of audiobooks and when I finish an audiobook, I just am committed to, on the next ride home, I’ll just be silent.

Right? Like, it’s just like moment of completion. Like, I’ve had however many hours of an audiobook of noise on my commute. And now as a kind of space between, I’ll just have these moment this time of silence to kind of say, like, I’ve completed something, and I’ll start something anew. And so I’ll give some space there.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Camille Hall-Ortega: But not everybody’s lives look like a long commute. And so if there are the folks that say, okay, I buy what you’re saying, I’m hearing you. There is value in silence. There’s value in this sort of intentional seeking of peace and of quiet. And I know that God values this, but my life doesn’t really look like that. I’ve got these kids or I’ve got this fast moving job or where do they start? What would you say is for someone who’s like, that’s gonna be really difficult for me, but I do buy in. What’s a first step?

Jon Guerra: I mean, I think the first step is, really having a mindset shift of what kind of creature you think you really are.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Mhmm.

Jon Guerra: We spend the majority of our lives doing things, but we weren’t first made doers. We were made to be. We are beings. And quiet and contemplation isn’t just the absence of doing. It’s the it’s the presence of being.

It’s the presence of… it’s making yourself aware daily that you are a creature loved by God infinitely with infinite value. John Mark Comer, I love. He says, “Contemplation is simply spending time imagining God looking at you with a smile and looking at you lovingly.”

Marcus Goodyear: I love that too. Everything you’ve said makes me think of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and our initial conversation was worship in the traditional sense that Christians talk about it. Worship music, worship teams, confetti cannons, flying drummers like in the Dallas church, at Christmas. And there’s part of me that just I admires the audacity of the confetti cannon and the flying drummer. So I agree with you that we wanna aim for something more, but sometimes, I don’t know, maybe sometimes there is a place for just the the wild energy that you get, as long as you you balance it.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Marcus Goodyear: But then I think about silence and I think about contemplation. Do you consider those to be forms of worship?

Jon Guerra: No. I, yeah. I would differentiate between those things. First of all, to your comment on maybe there is a place for it, I do think there’s a place for it. I just wonder if the place is church.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Yeah.

Jon Guerra: You know? Let’s have fun. My goodness. I’ve got a daughter. I mean, I’ve just wondered what is the role of this sacred thing that we’re trying to create together?

Camille Hall-Ortega: Sure.

Jon Guerra: And if confetti cannon or if the hype is actually doing what we think it’s supposed to be doing. Second of all, yeah, I differentiate. I think, again, contemplation, I sort of see as sort of that that loving gaze. You’re sort of you’re you’re trying to just dwell on grace or love coming from a person, like a real person that you can’t see, that you can’t taste, touch, smell, or hear audibly physically, but is really there. It is a you know, Aquinas defines beauty, which will be helpful for our conversation, Aquinas defines beauty as goodness made perceptible to the senses.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Oh, wow.

Jon Guerra: So beauty has a way of making something perceptible to us through our physical sense, but it’s making something perceptible that isn’t otherwise perceptible through our senses. So I think contemplation through beauty is very important because we’re making the love of a person, the grace of a person, whose God, available to us in this way. Worship, I think, is kind of this giving over of the self. I think it happens, when we’re giving even giving our grief, giving our pain over as kind of a I’m giving this to you, God. Like, this I know is valuable to you. I think that is worship.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Surrender.

Jon Guerra: That’s right. Yeah.

Camille Hall-Ortega: I love that.

Jon Guerra: And included in that is songs of praise, songs of adoration, words of, and then I would say meditation is taking maybe a phrase or taking scripture and and really, like, almost repeating it and and seeing if something something becomes clearer in that, in that focus in that, like, very particular focus.

Marcus Goodyear: Yeah. I’ll tell you something that I have found helpful in the past year. I agree with you about meditating on a phrase. The Lord’s prayer has served that function for me. Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry has served that function for me.

There’s some other poets as well. Reminding myself that I’m not what I do, that I’m more than what I do. I am, you know, I’m to be a part of Christ, to go to his his poem on Kingfishers.

Lately, though, I have found in my silence, and I’m talking about, like, I’m really good at this or faithful at it, but I have found myself trying to remove even the stories I tell myself about myself, just trying to become nothing. Not in a sadomasochistic way, but just to to let go even of the story of myself, even of the story that I’m being observed by God and and find sort of a deep silence that I can be in or rest in. I’m not quite sure what I’m aiming for, but it’s something that a spiritual advisor challenged me to to consider. And because I work in stories, the concept of letting go of story fully has been really powerful and challenging and kind of exciting. And, also, I don’t even know what it means to let go of the story of my identity.

Jon Guerra: That’s amazing, Marcus. No. I’m that’s amazing. I resonate with that deeply.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Jon, we have talked a lot about your style of music and what has led you there. We have a a recent EP that came out that I’ve been jamming. And it feels like a little bit of a departure.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Not in all senses, but in some ways, I would say. And so I wanna ask you what led you there, but I also wanna read some lyrics and we just wanna hear more from you on your heart for this EP. So these are some lyrics from the song American Gospel. You say, “Blessed are the powerful, blessed are the rich, blessed are the merciless and the hypocrites. They will inherit the empire’s passing. It’s the American gospel. Blessed are the superstars, blessed are the famous, blessed are the ones who make their faces ageless. They will inherit the magazine covers of the American gospel.” We wanna hear more. Tell us, how did you land here?

Marcus Goodyear: Amazing. Amazing.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. Just, you know, just trying to cultivate a space of quiet protests and people, I suppose. How did I land there? My wife and I and daughter, we were overseas this past summer, and we were in Greece and we were, like, twelve hours ahead, I think. So we spent the majority of the day out of the news cycle because really nothing was, you know, it was kind of yesterday’s news our whole day. And then around 6 or 7PM, suddenly the new day would open up and it was new things happening. And I think that separation from the American news cycle, over the summer, we were there for a while. We were there for, like, two months. Kind of, number one, gave me a different perspective or gave me sort of some clear eyes. Two, you’re right. It is different. It’s a bit more topical. I didn’t really set out to, oh, I wanna talk about what’s happening in America right now, but I’m writing this album right now, and I’m in the gospels a lot. And, so I’m thinking about Jesus and who He was and who He is and people who interact with Him. And He was such a wild person, and He is such a wild person, I should say. And I started writing these songs. They came out very fast. And, American Gospel specifically was, you know, I first thought, well, what what does Jesus have to say on the issues? Or what whose side is he really on here? And I realized I kinda just wanted Christ to speak for himself. But I wanted to do it in a way that tell it slant, you know?

Marcus Goodyear: Yes. Thank you, Emily Dickinson.

Jon Guerra: Exactly. What is the inverse of these things? And, once I kind of landed on that really first couplet, blessed are the powerful, blessed are the rich, I thought, well, there’s something. You don’t often hear it said that bluntly, but in fact, Jesus is kind of saying the opposite, and we all know he’s saying the opposite.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Right.

Jon Guerra: But, maybe this will help us hear it a little bit differently. And also wanted to say something to people on either side in either party. You know, I don’t think Christ can be claimed exclusively by any party.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Right.

Jon Guerra: He’s trying to lift us out of our categories, and, we’re constantly trying to bring Him into our categories.

Marcus Goodyear: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, the the challenge is to continue to see myself in this song. It’s it’s very easy to hear it and think, oh, yeah, we’re talking about those flying drummers and confetti cannons.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Marcus Goodyear: And I need to remember that I am the powerful. I am the rich.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. Mhmm.

Marcus Goodyear: I am the one who doesn’t show mercy when I should. I am the hypocrite, and I’m the one benefiting from all this empire. I was brought up and raised on the American gospel like a language, and I can’t not see it everywhere just like I can’t not read a sign in English because I speak English.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. That’s right.

Marcus Goodyear: And I have this this deep desire to reduce everything to a horse race. Did my horse win? Did that horse win? Did my side win? Did that side win? And I get very caught up in this. And so the reminder at the end to take us back to the beatitudes of the powerless, the poor, the merciful, the pure in heart.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Marcus Goodyear: It it just takes us back to the kingdom of Heaven, which is an upside down kingdom, which is not a kingdom of this world in a way that sets us free from from the need to lean into these politics so hard. It doesn’t mean politics have no meaning because it’s a way to negotiate power. We have to figure out how to do that.

Jon Guerra: Yeah.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Really good.

Jon Guerra: Man. Oh my goodness. You were so right that probably worse than any confetti cannon is sort of self righteousness that comes from thinking that you’re better than the confetti canon or something. You know? May maybe there is so maybe there is some kind of growth and even, like, challenge and discipline from God. It’s like sort of the, you know, the the the of the confetti cannon. Maybe maybe God’s like, you know, I’m gonna just imagine the prophets. He’s like, if you, you know, you think you’re better than this, you’re gonna spend a year shooting off confetti cannons every Sunday.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Right? Right.

Jon Guerra: Maybe that’s the best thing for you.

Marcus Goodyear: Not trying to defend the confetti cannons just to be clear.

Jon Guerra: No. But you’re you’re so right, though. That is the worst I mean, the the very worst possible thing is to look with haughty eyes.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Sure.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. And how guilty are we of that? Certainly, that’s probably the darkest thing about our, certainly, what happens during these election seasons is everybody is tempted to haughty eyes.

Marcus Goodyear: Oh, I’m just I’m more than tempted, Jon. I put them on.

Jon Guerra: Exactly. Yeah.

Marcus Goodyear: I fully embrace it.

Jon Guerra: Wear the glasses, man. Just permanent vision.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Right. Yes. I just want to- I loved what how you sort of defined worship. You said worship is a giving over of ourselves, and I just think that’s really beautiful. And you also just kind of tied in so well beauty, making goodness perceptible to the senses. And so I think these two things just really come together in a very meaningful way that we can give ourselves over and that beauty is so in and through that. And it’s reminding me of an archive clip that we have. Marcus, tell us more about it.

Marcus Goodyear: This is from 2007. So Mark Roberts was, director of Laity Lodge for many years starting right around 2007, and he also wrote for Worship Leader magazine and had very interesting things to say about worship and work as worship. And at this particular clip, he’s in the Great Hall, which is part of Laity Lodge, the adult retreat center run by the H.E.Butt Foundation, and it’s, in a very beautiful scenic location, this very narrow, tight, intimate canyon. And he’s talking about the relationship between worship and nature and our attitude toward God.

Mark Roberts (recording): Most of us are folk who who love being in natural settings. As you know, there are a lot of folk in our day who kinda worship nature there and really sort of nature is it. For us, nature is a reflection, a mirror reflecting the beauty and the glory of of God. And so as we drink in the beauty in a space like this, it’s not the end just to enjoy the beauty, but to let the enjoyment of the beauty, draw us to an enjoyment of God and recognition of God’s, God’s power, but also, God’s own beauty reflected in creation.

Marcus Goodyear: Jon, when you hear that we’ve been talking about confetti cannons, and maybe the problem with confetti cannons is that they’re not sufficiently beautiful. I don’t know. But talk a little bit about this idea of beauty as a path toward worship or as a path toward God. That worship is when we don’t just enjoy the beauty, we let that beauty guide us toward the beauty of God, the source of all beauty.

Jon Guerra: Yeah. I like that. Maybe confetti cannons aren’t sufficiently beautiful. One of the powers of experience of Laity Lodge is that you are kind of ensconced in beauty for three days when you’re there, for the retreats at least, and even at the camps. Natural beauty has a way of lifting us even out of time. I mean, so many trees, just think of how long it takes for a tree to grow. Think of how long the sun has been rising and setting. I think God kinda left beautiful things in the world as kind of a, just a little signpost for us. You know? And it’s a signpost that that points and that delights for people who recognize where it’s pointing or not. You know? He is- what does it say in Ecclesiastes? The the sun shines on the righteous and the wicked. The rain falls on the righteous and the wicked. And, and I have certainly been both from day to day. You know?

Camille Hall-Ortega: Yeah.

Jon Guerra: And I think one of the things we lose is our ability to recognize beauty when when we are both given over to noise, given over to haughty eyes, when we become our own gods, when the self gets curved in on itself is we, we lose our ability to recognize beauty. The experience of beauty leaves because in order to experience beauty, there’s a little pamphlet written by, Elaine Scarry called On Beauty and Being Just that came out about twenty-five years ago. And she describes the properties of beauty. In one of them, she says, “Beauty is decentering. In order for me to recognize the beauty of anything, I have to be focused on that thing and not on me.”

Camille Hall-Ortega: Wow.

Marcus Goodyear: Yes.

Jon Guerra: And when we’re focused on ourselves, it’s like the first thing we lose is the beauty of everything. You know? It’s funny. I was actually just on a retreat with Mark and Linda Roberts at Laity Lodge, and we talked about beauty, and we talked about the varieties of beauty, actually. And another variety of beauty is certainly the cross. Right? That is the miracle of the cross, that even in this grotesque tragedy, love transfigures that grotesque tragedy into the most beautiful symbol ever.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Jon, that’s wonderful. I well, these are just really good reminders. There it’s just all really good reminders. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing. I know, we’re wrapping up here. You have mentioned that you’re working on some projects. Any teasers that you can tell us what we can expect soon?

Jon Guerra: Yeah. I’m working on an album with Tenielle Neda, who’s a singer songwriter from Australia. Beautiful voice, beautiful writing. Another artist, Nick Chambers, who’s another devotional music songwriter from Atlanta. Amazing songs. I’m hard at work on my next album, which is the thing that is occupying my attention this week, which is another devotional music album on the person of Christ and who He is, what He means, who He is to me. And, those are things that I’m really looking forward to for 2025.

Marcus Goodyear: That’s wonderful. We’ll include links to so many things that were referenced in this podcast in the notes.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Yes. Yes. Well, thank you so much for your time, Jon. This has been a treat. Thanks so much for joining us.

Jon Guerra: Thanks so much or having me.

Camille Hall-Ortega: Of course.

Jon Guerra: It was a delight.

Camille Hall-Ortega: The Echoes Podcast is written and produced by Marcus Goodyear, Rob Stennett, and me, Camille Hall-Ortega. It’s edited by Rob Stennett and Kim Stone. Our executive producers are Patton Dodd and David Rogers. Special thanks to our guest today, Jon Guerra. The Echoes Podcast is a production brought to you by the H.E.Butt Foundation. You can learn more about our vision and mission at hebfdn.org.

Season 1: Episode 6

Confetti Cannons and Contemplation

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