Send us a text

Mark and Eric talk about a philosophy of God that might work for you if simple answers do not. How does human religions actually work in real time? Is God something we can actually name and put in a box? Or it is a moving target of an ideal that humans cast out before themselves to deal with the difficulty of reality?

We hope you love it!

Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom.

https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck

And below is the poem in this episode...

Heart,
Mark and Eric

___________________________________

YOU ARE ONLY A WATCHER.

Have the humility and awareness

to open your eyes to the unseen

and you will find the face of God.

I don’t mean spirits or daemons

or old gods disguised as just another object.

No. You are invited to the thing behind all things—

big bang’s banger,

electric in lightning,

fortitude in blood cell—

the only wisdom frightening

enough to hold light and dark matter

in one weird-science jar and say, “Oh well.”

Let’s just see what you have to say

to the morning sun that brings in day.

You can predict it will arrive and leave

but that should never give you any reprieve

from the fact that you are only

an ancient-future Watcher

of the only One truly lonely

when it comes to pulling on unseen string theories;

making it all go. And so no, your existentialism

does not impress me and it draws the furies.

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric talk wealth gap, systemic overhaul, and the scandal of politics in the fading western empire. Along the way, they talk about Jesus as a Second Temple Period human sage, a different kind of kingdom, and how to treat people in hard knock times.

We hope you love it!

Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom.

https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck

And below is the poem in this episode...

Heart,
Mark and Eric

_______________________________________

MR. SMITH STAYS HOME.

I’ll save all of my Hallelujahs,
for a world without hunger
and all of my thoughts and prayers
for the younger generation,
in a private room where I con—fess
just how scared I am to be blessed
by the modern world and all its current religions.
Conservative or Liberal,
Democrat or Republican,
all the same, there and back again,
whatever the name—
The churches in the capitol city
raise praise to capitalism
and corporate identity
while ignoring the fact that
we know all their ideologies,
are just dressed up in their best
for the funeral of the old West.
We are in an Age
of great overturning and rage;
some of us are prophets
intuiting your profits, Mr. Senator,
or at least we can see,
that yours is a labyrinth free
of any real threat of a minotaur.
I ony see Uncle Scar
and a pack of scrapping hyenas
lost to the realities of the hunt;
a troop of foreign policy runts.
And besides, a modern Mr. Smith
stays home alone like Kevin,
or dreaming of heaven—
he already learned and replied—
a good man can never go to Washington
and remain virtuous inside.

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric kick around the idea of awareness as a philosophical pillar for meaning, life, and even divinity, before performing an original poem entitled "Awareness."

We hope you love it!

Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom.

https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck

And below is the poem in this episode...

Heart,
Mark and Eric

AWARENESS.

Awareness is the first and greatest gift of God. Look, traveller:

in an age that worships intellectual knowing,

be mindful of the primal gift of awareness,

constantly observing the empirical evidence

in the first place. What is the I that thinks and feels?

You can thank Rene Descartes, for the idea’s first expression.

Or think of Yahweh’s words to Moshe,

or recall Jesus’ allusion to that same theophany—

all are naming existence before any other discernible fact.

Awareness is the means you have for observing.

No experiment is possible without the observing eye;

no observation of tree line or big sky comes

without center of self and mystic intuition under the mind.

All this is theoretical and heady, but think of the implications

when you actually taste the spaghetti:

Who says you are old or young?

Who says you’ve been here only this long?

Who says when you leave you are really ever gone?

Who says where awareness goes when the body expires?

Who says you have this short time—so make the best of it?

Who says there is no such thing as a silver thread?

God says the answers to all these questions,

but is not interested to spoil the surprise.

Instead, God provides and sustains your awareness

so you can marvel, wonder, and take in the dawn.

If you are an enlightened one,

you have realized the absurdity of assumed finality.

You wonder how you came to the House of the World,

and how many times, and where you might go next.

Now when you read, “in the beginning”

you ask with the rabbis, “which beginning?” and laugh.

Your cosmology and individuality dances with the idea,

that awareness is the first heavenly light:

A star factory divided into a billion souls across the ages.

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric talk about how to have peace in a world of uncertainty. We hope you LOVE it!

Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom.

https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck

And below is the poem in this episode...

Heart,
Mark and Eric

...PEACE...

Peace comes when you are ready,
and she is not all that heady—
just quietly turns off the news
because you’ll hear about it later,
and besides, nothing can surprise you,
at least not at this point.

She gives you wealth from your own account:
maxims and mantras
from the wisdom you collected
reading books and watching films,
learning from the older ones, and experiences—
especially the times you tried and failed.

She loves blue dawn and amber dusk
because the horizon is clearest
and the impossible things that are possible
and nearest to your minds-eye.
I found that Lady Peace was elusive
for almost every mile of my youth,

but now I never walk alone,
and she reminds me that we don’t do drama.

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric talk about how the animals can teach us wisdom if we have eyes to see. Along with it, we chat about how to move and breathe in a culture addicted to fast wealth and fame (which the vast majority of us never actually achieve). We hope you love it!

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric set up a street performance in front of the "Together We Rise" mural in Cedar Rapids, IA. The mural is a bunch of hands stacked up to the Cedar Rapids skyline, representing the need to work together to rise as a society.

We did a live set of four poems, and the connection between them is doing the intellectual and moral work on yourself so that you can forgive and live graciously... as opposed to judging culture, opposite political parties, or individuals who have hurt you in the past. We hope you love it!

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric kick talk about consumerist culture and how to cultivate a life that does more good than harm. We also speculate about space archaeologists in 10,000 years, building altars in the back yard, imaginary friends, and why we'd rather be eaten in two-three T-REX chomps than mauled by giant centipedes.

We hope you love it! Be good to each other!

Heart, Mark and Eric

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.

Send us a text

Mark and Eric kick around the theory of rituals in religious traditions, and try to help you focus on the posture of the heart that actually helps. They also introduce their new book HOLY ROLLER and pop a recent live set on the back end.

We hope you love it! Be good to each other!

Heart, Mark and Eric

For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com.

You can find all of social handles here:

TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS.

Want to support the show, experience our best creative work, buy one of our books or give an uncommonly better gift or art and heart? Ha! Head to the TEXT AND ROCK DIGITAL PRESS.