Hope: Dispelling Rumors

Letters from Light, Advent Poems

Two years ago for Advent here at Wednesdays at the Well, I wrote letters to the Lights. Hello Hope. Hey Peace. Greetings Joy. Oh Love. Dear Beloved. (If you’d like to read or re-read these letters simply click the title.)

Each week’s reflection was a personal letter, where I shared my thoughts, curiosities, and wonders with these Lights I have known all my life, but never fully understood. Since my experience of leaving the church, the pull to engage these Lights has only strengthened. What is it about them?

This Advent, I’m offering something similar, yet different. Instead of writing to the Lights, I’m listening and sharing messages from them.

Incorporating what I have learned from my training with The Good Listening Project, these poems are born from time spent listening deeply with suspended judgement, open eyes, and an inquisitive heart to the Lights.

I am genuinely excited to share these new poems. Trusting they will inspire and challenge you in your reading as they have me in my creative process.

Today, we begin with HOPE.

I simply invite you to listen as you watch the video and read the words below.

And then begin reflecting…

What have you heard from HOPE?

When, where, and how will you make space for listening to HOPE in the coming week?

Hope-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10CAMELS

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Hope: Dispelling Rumors
©Rebecca Wilson, December 2025

rumor has it
I am fragile
that I cannot handle reality
that you need handle me with caution
carefully, protect me
because I break so easily
simplistic, weak, naive

yes, I am the thing with feathers
   perching on your soul
I am also the fire upon your shoulders
   kindled want becoming whole

I am water
   guiding from the womb
I am light 
   revealing empty tombs
I am power
   propelling the journey between
   these book-ended rooms
      where babies feast on nurturing breasts
      young prophets discover wisdom of sacred texts
      where empires fall
      elders find rest

I do not require your cover
for I am the shelter
   the possible
   the promise
   dreams you dare to vision
   new worlds you imagine
   longings you brave to believe
   joys you celebrate
   wounds you tend
   sorrows you grieve
   pains you hold
   stories you heal

   the future you fear
   the prayers you breathe
   the courage you sing
   the songs you compose
   the seeds you pull
   the weeds that grow
   the eyes in the mirror
   the pulse just low enough to hear
      when open hearts deeply listen

I am the surviving ancestor of innocence
   the laughter of children
   cries of strangers 
   truth telling in crowds of danger

   shadows and stars
   suns and moons
   rising and setting
   your remembering and your forgetting
   resisting, rebelling

   humanly shakable
   divinely unbreakable
   with you always and ever
   no way and never

I am the burning wick
   the wax 
beautiful, messy
purposefully, chaotically
   binding all things together

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There are still seats available for the Advent Poetry show with my poet friend Trent Clifford and I next Tuesday, December 9th on Zoom. Tickets are free, click here to register through Eventbrite.