Over the next year I will be hosting a series of nine nights at St. Mark’s Church in Austin called “Beauty As Well As Bread.” They will feature varieties of combination of song, poetry, stillness, reflection, lecture, and visual art, with featured guests ranging from scholars, painters, poets, priests, and fellow songwriters.
These nights are not concerts so much as experiments in cultivating resonance — resonance with the deeper layers of the world. Beauty puts us in touch with invisible things. Deep beckons to deep.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.” – John Muir, The Yosemite.
Muir understood how maintaining wild places in nature is essential for the flourishing of the human spirit; I want to maintain similar spaces for the arts for the same reason. Beauty stuns us, consoles us, stretches us, and rewrites us. I hope you’ll join us in discovering again that beauty is not a luxury for the artsy, but necessary nourishment for all.
— Jon Guerra, August 2025
Beauty As Well As Bread
May 5 | Gathering #9
As we come to the final night of Beauty As Well As Bread Season 1, I’m filled with gratitude—for what’s been discovered together in the quiet, in the poetry, in the music, in the shared act of paying attention. What began as a simple hope to gather around beauty and bread has, night by night, become a real community marked by honesty, listening, and a kind of sacred nearness I didn’t quite expect but have come to cherish.
It feels fitting to close this first season with my band, singing songs we’ve played across the country—now, at last, bringing them home to Austin. I’d love for you to join us one more time to remember what’s been given, to celebrate it together, and to look forward to what’s to come.
See you then.
— Jon Guerra
Spring Calendar
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Gathering No. 5, w/ David Zahl
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Gathering No. 6 w/ Fr. Maximos Constas & Steuart Pincombe
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Gathering No. 7, w/ John Van Deusen
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Gathering No.8: Silence and Stillness
“Many years ago I was in Rome with my wife. We wandered into an open cathedral — cool stone, soft light, a hush that welcomed us. We didn’t need to know the language, or muster anything. We simply entered and found rest. You’re invited to an evening of silence and stillness in Austin shaped by that same spirit—a quiet gathering to rest the mind, attend to the soul, and remember that nourishment comes in more than one form. As Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” This night is an offering of attention: to silence, to presence, to what cannot be hurried or forced. There will be poetry and music as usual, but we are going to lean into the stillness. We hope you will join us.”
– Jon Guerra -
Gathering No. 9
JON GUERRA is a singer-songwriter & producer who creates Devotional Music — less Sunday morning worship music, and more Monday morning prayer music.
Jon's debut Devotional Music album was Keeper of Days (2020), followed by Ordinary Ways (2023), and most recently Jesus (2025). Jon has also composed music for film (Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life," 2019).
Jon collaborates with a wide variety of artists, tours regularly, is building a community around Devotional Music, and resides in Austin, TX.
Beauty As Well As Bread
Made possible by the Artist-in-Context program
from the Creative Arts Collective for Christian Life & Faith
and by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church