Choosing Love in the Wilderness: Resisting Empire and Embracing Change

Kathy Wilder, Executive Director of Camp Stevens, thanks St. Peter’s for ongoing support and shares a story from the 2007 Camp Stevens fire, including meeting a firefighter who had once been a camper through a foster care partnership and whose experience at camp helped shape her life and career after incarceration. Wilder connects the story to Jesus’ wilderness temptations, framing the temptations as reflections of power and empire, and relates them to current realities including ICE raids, genocide in Palestine, antisemitism, school shootings, and attacks on transgender people. Citing the Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, she contrasts Empire’s fear with God’s love and urges choosing love. Wilder offers three practices: “revolutionary patience” (attributed to the Rev. Carter Heyward and discussed after the 2024 election), “see no stranger” (from Valerie Kaur and a Sikh tenet) with a call to stay curious and seek common ground, and embracing change—an ethic she learned from Peter Bergstrom and that helped Camp Stevens rebuild after the fire and adapt through the pandemic, leading to a new vision statement, “envisioning a world of wholehearted belonging.” She shares personal news that she and her wife, the Rev. Hannah Wilder, are moving to Reno where Hannah will serve as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Sparks, and she offers gratitude and a farewell to St. Peter’s, closing with a traveler’s prayer about being swift to love and to be kind.

00:00 Welcome and Camp Stevens

00:52 The 2007 Camp Fire

02:03 A Firefighter’s Transformation

04:28 Jesus in the Wilderness

05:26 Empire vs Love Today

06:50 Stephanie Spellers Quote

08:45 Three Practices for Courage

08:54 Revolutionary Patience

10:29 See No Stranger

11:30 Embrace Change at Camp

12:49 Moving to Reno Goodbye

14:22 Traveler’s Prayer Closing