Third Monday in Lent

“Your hands have made and
     fashioned me;
give me understanding that
     I may learn your commandments.” Psalm 119:73

you formed my hands
with a palm to caress
the faces of my loved one
and fingers to trace under words,
not to clench in rage.
you shaped my feet
so i might be able to accompany
those wearied by life
and jump rope with kids,
not to walk past the forgotten.
you crafted my eyes
so i might see the beauty
in a painting by a master
as well as in the chalk
drawings on sidewalks,
not go admire myself
in every mirror i meet.
you transplanted your heart
into me so that i might
love those the world
teaches me to despise,
not idolize the wicked.

© 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo:@Thom-Shuman

Third Sunday in Lent

”There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

we could come up
with quite a list of folks
we think should be
standing before the court,
as we place a black cloth
on our heads, ready to pronounce
the harshest sentence we could—
while you offer to serve
as their defense counsel,
at no cost.
we find it so easy to offer
critique after critique on
how one lives, speaks,
dresses, worships, works,
and so much more, while
you would focus on their gifts
rather than on their tweaks.
we automatically head to
the time out chair in the corner,
ready to stay there until
we think you are appeased,
and all you want is for us
to climb up in your lap
for a snuggle and a story.

© 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo:@Thom-Shuman

Third Saturday in Lent

“Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’" Mark 5:9

today,
the answer would rise
from the depths of despair,
the graves of the grieving,
the empty hallways of life.
the ones fractured by cruel faith,
the forgotten spread across
a thousand gaunt faces,
children’s cries that rise from rubble,
voices longing for attention and
only encountering silence,
which carries the faint whisper,
”I am Legion,”
not just one but so many
not just one name but all
which are carried on the dust
from storms in the soul.
it is the nameless
and the vulnerable
poster children of a world
so broken but so afraid of healing
and it is us, lost in crowds,
struggling to be heard in noise,
doubting if we will ever
be made whole again.
but Jesus never flinches
but continues to call us
by name, no, not Legion,
but Beloved.

© 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo:@Thom-Shuman

Third Friday in Lent

“Now the famine was severe in the land.” Genesis 43:1

it is not just an old story
pulled from a dusty book,
it is about our days as well.
in the stale air of our moments,
silos of compassion stand half-empty.
buckets clang against the dry bottom
of the wells of patience.
even justice is parceled out—
a cup for those who agree with us,
a bucket for those who idolize us,
a drib, a drab for those who do not.
peace sleeps in shadowed doorways
after knocking on fears who have set alarms.
hope is at the back of the line,
joining the weary who wonder
if anyone remembers that there
is enough mercy for all.
yet, like wheat sheltering under dust,
the promise of God quietly stirs—
if we begin to turn toward others again,
if we carry share from just
a small bag of compassion,
our famines will not have
the final word in our times.
grace is waiting to produce
a bumper crop for the world.

© 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo:@Thom-Shuman

Third Thursday in Lent

“’All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.” 1 Corinthians 6:12

‘i won’t go to jail’
we tell ourselves believing
freedom is license to do
whatever we want,
but you turn from that
lonely desert road of Lent,
asking are we serious.
yes, we can choose the
snark, anger, memes,
those tiny idolatries that
soon become a pantheon
of gods that demand my all.
but they are not food
nor are they mercy,
or even tiny seeds of hope
in this season we call
less is more, our freedoms
are sifted through your fingers
like sand, until all that is left
is what nourishes our parched souls.
so may we not be captive
to all which does not love us,
or kneel to all who would not
bless us if we paid them.
show us the true liberty
found in laying things down,
until we hunger and thirst
only for you.

(c) 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo: @Thom-Shuman

Second Wednesday in Lent

“I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD
   in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13

too often
we are fixated on
(no, addicted to)
the chaos around us.
we close our eyes
to the suffering of others
afraid it might be a
vision of our future.
we push close
to the mirror, crowding out
the vulnerable.
so
open our eyes to goodness—
not just occasional acts
in the land of the privileged
who live as we cannot imagine,
but being intentional about justice
for the mentally ill filed away
in group homes, far from view,
for our aging populations forgotten
in those warehouses called nursing homes.
persistent in pursuing peace
for the children whose playgrounds
are filled with rubble and whose toys
are bits and pieces of shattered dreams
and whose parents are being buried
simply because they worked
in buildings the powerful deemed
to be threats to someone or something.

(c) 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo: @Thom-Shuman

Second Tuesday in Lent

“And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’” Mark 3:34-35

they are all around us—
the kids with dust in their hair,
families holding grief in their hands,
the lonely growing lonelier.
and in the middle of this circle
of the overlooked and despised,
Jesus wants us to notice—
not the shaking fists of power
or the most strident voices,
but those who always seem to have
more than enough for others.
in moments when fear draws borders
and profit rains fire from the sky,
Jesus puts another leaf in the table—
pushing it beyond checkpoints
and past those lines drawn in the sand
by all who see only enemies.
‘whoever does the will of God’—
that will which offers mercy
to a child sitting atop rubble,
that will which offers justice
to workers who have no voice,
that will which draws the stranger
into an embrace as if a prodigal.
communities aren’t birthed in
this widening gyre of the world,
families aren’t just bonded by blood,
but nurtured in fields of compassion,
watered by the tears of the forgotten,
harvested by kind acts of grace.
so let us draw close enough
to hear the other breathe,
take the time to learn the names
of everyone we are told to fear,
as we discover in the widening
circle of grace, we belong to one another.

© 2026 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo:@Thom-Shuman