(bright music) (bright music) - Welcome to "10thirtysix," I'm Portia Young.

Vote 2024 Table Talk is a new initiative here at Milwaukee PBS in partnership with Marquette University's Civic Dialogues Program.

It's an effort to restore civility to political discourse and differing views.

We wanted to know what local voters think about some key issues as we get ready for political conventions and the fall presidential election.

So we invited a small diverse group of voters for dinner and conversation at Engine Company 3 in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood.

Our first topic, climate change, the chair of the political science department at Marquette, Dr. Amber Wichowsky, facilitated the discussion.

Here's a portion of that conversation.

(bright music) - Right, so this is our table talk on climate change.

So I'm gonna have us begin, you know, would you say that climate change is affecting your family, your community?

Anyone can start.

- I came from a rural community and all of the troubles of the rural communities being depopulated over the years, and it's hard to find a job there.

So I have family who don't have a lot of excess money and food costs more because of climate change.

It just does, you know, a lot of things cost more, but food is a very real thing.

- So I wanted to touch base a little bit with Dale, and I think he makes a really good point, which is the cost of this is gonna be born by those who can't afford it as well.

So, like, I think of a very concrete example, this is maybe a bit silly, but if my energy bill triples, it'll be annoying to me to pay that, but I can do that.

There's a lot of people, especially in the developing world, that if their energy costs triple it takes them from just having that energy to having to going back off the grid essentially.

And that's brutal for them, brutal for them.

- I work at a local community health center in the city of Milwaukee that's based on the south side.

And our department is environmental health.

So we do a lot of work based on climate change and the effects that it's having on our communities, specifically to their health.

And we're seeing this in ways that I didn't know necessarily was like connected when I was growing up.

- I think what I gathered from all of you is that climate change is an important issue to you.

You think there's a government role.

So let's flush this out a little bit.

Like what would this government role look like?

So I'll start first thinking about taxes and providing tax incentives or rebates.

Do you support that sort of approach to addressing climate change?

- There does have to be some government involvement, but I think the bulk of it will come from private investors in the private sector in general.

- I think tax incentives have a role in in that way to maybe subsidize electric cars.

But it's a whole picture thing in terms of electric cars have their own problems as well that we're gonna see down the line.

I talked to a battery producer in Milwaukee actually the other day, and he's like, we're about 15 years away from seeing what lithium waste looks like.

And nobody's thinking about that right now.

And it's all kind of a, I can go on forever, so I won't keep going, but it's kind of a, it's always a balance and trade off question.

- I wish that more countries will collaborate, you know, like better, not just politically, but you know, like actually do work.

And I'm gonna say COVID-19 is a good example.

Look how fast we got a vaccination when, you know, like all the companies around the world seemed like, okay, this is the world's problem, this is the number one thing, we gotta get on this, and boom, we did come up with, you know, like a solution.

Okay, you know, it's gonna be argued if it's the best solution or not, you know, but at least that energy that's around that particular problem, you know, like got noticed, got things done, and somehow some way we need to find that type of pattern or that type of path to do it with climate change.

- I'd like to for a minute, take it in the directly opposite direction from global to your own backyard.

And Darrell told me about his front yard.

He got rid of the grass and he planted ground covers, right?

- Right.

- And, you know, if a couple of billion other people in the world did that, it really would make a difference in how much, you know, gasoline powered lawnmowers are spewing into the air.

And so, you know, we all would like to have some big fix, you know, some grand thing that would make the difference.

But it's gonna come down to each of us as individual human beings deciding how we're gonna live and whether we can do the things in our own house, in our own backyard to help.

- One of the things that I may suggest doing is local governments could maybe incentivize some of the high rises we have here in Milwaukee or other, you know, of these, you know, the boring glass buildings, office buildings, to use their walls or you know, the ceiling to add a variety of native foliages, which not only spurs and assists with biodiversity, which is important, but also helps the whole, you know, climate change problem.

And it can help offset some of their own carbon emissions.

So my point is, there's a variety of different options here.

- I think one of the things just to kind of take us back up a little bit more globally is if we can help some of the people in the developing world get energy, I think like 60% of people in Africa don't have access to reliable energy, and when you don't have that and you're living in poverty, you don't think about the environment.

So this is a, I don't want to use the cliche, but thinking about the stuff like green buildings and all that stuff, that's it's a first world problem in some sense.

- So I do have a toast, right?

Let's raise our glasses to continue dialogue in our communities.

- Here, here.

- Here, here.

- Cheers, cheers.

- Research shows there's actually more common ground among voters than realized, and that's pretty much what we found in this discussion.

For most of our participants, climate change is an important issue when it comes to how they'll vote in November.

We will continue to share our Table Talk Gatherings here on "10thirtysix" and on our other local programs.

Upcoming topics will be education, democracy, and immigration.

Turning now to "How We Heal," our monthly series on mental health.

Producer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Cramer talks with a woman who lost her first husband in a tragic ice fishing accident 10 years ago.

She has since found her passion in helping others through the grief process.

Here's Elizabeth's story.

(waves crashing) - [Elizabeth] I once heard that grief is like waves.

(waves crashing) Sometimes you're able to stand in the ebb and flow, other times it hits you like a tidal wave that knocks you off your feet.

(waves crashing) Though it's the most universal human emotion, it often feels lonely and isolating.

The one thing we know is that connection and hearing someone else's story can help us heal.

(waves crashing) (gentle music) - I met Jim Hudson in 2004, almost 20 years ago in Bayfield, Wisconsin.

And he introduced me to ice fishing.

And then 2013, he was guiding clients on Lake Superior and his snowmobile went through the ice and he passed away.

So he passed away doing the thing that both of us love.

It was an accident and things happen, but the craziest thing is, the thing that took him from me is also the thing that helped me heal.

- [Elizabeth] Ice fishing is also how I met Hannah.

Back in 2019, I was producing a segment for "Outdoor Wisconsin" about a group of women that regularly gathered together to ice fish on Lake Superior.

Hannah shared that she had lost her husband to the same water we were standing on, but continued to honor their agreement to live life to the fullest.

- [Hannah] I had a really, really, really bad miscarriage, almost died, and we both decided, you know what?

Life's short, let's do the things that we love.

- Now that you mentioned the miscarriage too, there's probably a lot of grief wrapped up in that experience.

- Oh, very much so.

- Even before losing Jim.

- Oh, yeah, well, and one of the crazy things, and I am horrible about thinking about, okay, well, there's lessons that we learned from everything.

When I had my miscarriage and the PTSD that occurred because of the things that happened around that set me up with the most amazing therapist to help me through losing my husband.

I was already in therapy, so.

- And that was a good thing.

- That was a really good thing.

I do remember that I came home, my sister drove up from southern Wisconsin in about six hours, and I went through about 20 mugs, like ceramic mugs, destroying them, throwing them all over my bedroom, plates.

Like, I broke almost every plate and mug in the house, just in my bedroom, I destroyed a door.

I did a lot of property damage in my bedroom because I was very angry, but I wasn't gonna show the world about it, of how absolutely, like, heartbroken, yes, obviously I'm heartbroken, but like I was breaking things.

- How do you describe grief?

- As individual as a fingerprint 'cause it is different for every single person.

It doesn't matter, there's frameworks for it, they call them Grief Frameworks and there's lots of different names for them.

But the most important thing is it is personal to you.

It is weird, and can be terrifying and sad isn't the right word, but it's yours.

And whatever you're doing is okay.

- That's interesting you say sad isn't the right word 'cause I think that's the first word people often think of with grief, well, grief is me being sad about someone dying or losing something.

- Yeah, and it's not that at all.

You can be sad in it, but it's way more complicated than that.

You can also be extremely joyful and grateful.

That's part of grief too, but it's also part of that grief process.

People think there's a beginning and an end to grief.

Grief just is, you just keep on going.

And it could be as difficult as losing a spouse, it can be losing a job.

(waves crashing) (gentle music) (waves crashing) (gentle music continues) - I wanted us to come out here.

- Yes.

- On the lake, on the water, because I know how important water is to you and to your healing process.

- Yes.

- So tell me how water has supported you throughout your life.

- So water to me is really healing because it shows change.

You can go years, and that same body of water is there, but it has changed over the seasons.

So whether you're looking at it as seasons, whether it's frozen up, it's thawing, it's muddy, it's clear, it's blue, it's always there, but it's always different.

So, you know, from a high concept point of view, for me, water's always changing.

From an actual practical standpoint, being out on the water has been hugely helpful to me.

Whether it's canoeing, kayaking, fishing, ice fishing, just watering, like just wandering in the water.

Watering myself is all I almost said.

- Yeah.

- But it's, I just like being in it.

I've been like that since I was a kid, but really if I see a body of water and I can get in it, I will.

Whether I have appropriate clothing or not, I'll probably end up somehow walking in that water.

- Yeah.

- At the beginning of this, I didn't understand the concept of self-forgiveness.

Through all of this, what I've learned is no matter what mistakes you may perceive you've made along the grief process, they're not mistakes.

They're just how you do it.

You know, there's so many things that were just grief.

They were just things that I had to go through and to move through that I felt needed to be more perfect than they were.

And that wasn't it at all.

Like, there's no perfection in grief because there's no way to do it other than the way that you're going to do it.

(waves crashing) - Elizabeth Cramer joins us now.

Thanks for being here and sharing Hannah's story with us.

- Absolutely.

- Well, in your upcoming segments on "How We Heal," you're going to explore different types of therapy.

What can we expect to see?

- Yeah, so in our next few segments, we're really focusing on equine therapy and art therapy.

And that's because I really wanted to show that there are different types of therapies out there.

So a lot of people think that maybe talk therapy isn't for them, and maybe traditional therapy isn't.

But something that's non-traditional, like equine therapy, working with horses or art therapy might be perfect.

- Let's talk a little bit about equine therapy.

How is that part of the therapeutic picture?

How does that work?

- Yeah, I think first of all, animals can be incredibly healing, and horses specifically are incredibly sensitive animals.

And a lot of times they pick up on people's emotions and react to them sometimes even more than we do.

So working with horses can be really reflective of what someone is going through and can really show them a lot that they can learn about themselves.

- We look forward to that on our upcoming segments, "How We Heal."

Thank you, Elizabeth, for joining us.

- [Elizabeth] Yeah, thank you for having me.

- Well, we do wanna continue sharing our conversation that I had with Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who handed in his retirement papers last month when he turned 75.

That is a requirement for all governing bishops.

The archbishop addressed many topics, including the role of women in the Catholic church.

Let's talk about the Pope, Pope Francis since under his tenure, it seems the Catholic church has gone a bit more progressive, that it has kind of moved forward.

Do you think that will continue even if there is a new Pope?

- Oh, sure, you know, one thing about Francis, you say progressive, you know, I would say that he took and reestablished a vision for the church, which sometimes, especially like, sometimes we in the United States, forget.

You know, when I take a look and even talk to my pastors, you know, my pastors will talk in terms of maintaining their parish.

You know, they'll say that, you know, "We've gotta get somebody to do this.

We gotta make sure we have so many mass.

We gotta make sure," and I will ask them, and you, fortunately, you know, my three priorities were Catholic identity, and evangelization and priority.

I'll ask them, "What have you been doing with evangelization?

You asked me, how do you fill the churches?

Well, it's not to fill the church.

How do you bring Christ to people?

Where do you go to ignite them in terms of basically what I believe is that inner call of God in all of us, how do you ignite that?

How do you begin to preach that?

How do you to bring them in?"

Well, I think what Pope Francis did is he helped us to take our vision out of a maintenance mode into a missionary mode.

And he himself was a missionary, you know, so he had this sense of sharing the mission of the church and making sure we went out to be able to proclaim Jesus.

I think, I believe that missionary spirit, the missionary sense, is his greatest gift.

And I think that'll be a part of whoever comes into his office.

- And on that evangelization, as you call it, with Pope Francis, will others be able to see themselves in the Catholic church, more different communities, black community, Hispanic community, the LGBTQ community, will that kind of missionary draw help the future of the Catholic church?

- Well, my sense is in everything that you mentioned, they're already already a part of the church.

You know, it's not necessarily that they haven't been, but sometimes in whatever given culture, sometimes there's a push against inviting, rather than understanding of proclaiming.

My sense is you proclaim the Spirit and then you allow the Spirit to work, you know?

So it'll be taking a look at how we best proclaim the spirit to people and allow them to be formed and fashioned by that.

I follow Christ, not because Christ does what I want Him to do.

I follow Christ because I understand how important it is for me to follow what He says I should do.

You know what the number one reason why people were not going to church, sloth.

They're no longer challenged to live basically the faith, sloth.

I don't want to get up on Sunday.

Just, I don't want to go, I don't wanna be basically a member.

But sloth was was the (indistinct) region.

So if we're gonna attack anything, what we attack is sloth, the complacency that comes in.

And that goes into what I was talking about is the difference in terms of the cultures.

And in the other cultures, when I'm talking in terms like, say the African culture, some of the Asian cultures, you're taking your commitment and you're living it out.

You know, come high or hot water, we're gonna be there and in church we're gonna be there with the communal, we're gonna do that.

Here in our community, oh, you didn't bring me this, you didn't do that, you didn't do this that well, you didn't.

So we need to be excited and energized about the commitment of our faith.

- Let's talk about the morale of the priests.

What is the archdiocese, the vocations right now?

How are they feeling, A, with your retirement up upcoming, but also just going through this whole past 14 years?

I bet it's been kind of a rollercoaster for them as well.

- Oh, well, it has, but you know, you take a look at God's providential hand in all this.

As I told you, you know, our seminary's full.

We'll ordain in May nine young men to the priesthood.

Now, two things are very special about that.

I don't think, there may be two other, maybe three, but there may be two other archdiocese or diocese in the country that'll have that number, that'll be at that level, that's one.

And the second is the real quality of the young men that we are getting into the priesthood.

So there's something in the sense that whether it's born out by crisis or born out by a real sense of the deepening of religious commitment, young men who want to profess basically that faith.

And if you talk to our people who are experiencing these young men who are being ordained and going into the priesthood, they love 'em.

That's why the seminary dinner that we have here has well over 2,000 people coming to it.

We've gotta go to the Wisconsin Center now, the Baird Center, in able to be able to have a place to be able to hold that many.

Now what does that say to you?

It says there's something being generated by the Spirit.

The Spirit has a way of taking the challenges, presenting it to young men through those priests who act as an example for them that want to share in professing basically Christ and His church.

And that's what's happening here in basically the seminary.

When I came, there were 14 men in the seminary.

We opened up our doors for 83 this year.

So that should tell you immediately that there's something really wonderful that's going on.

- Do you ever see a future, perhaps, where women would be able to be priests or have a greater role?

- Oh, why, I think, you know, there's a little misnomer about that.

I already think women have a tremendous role in the church.

Basically, priesthood is the image of Christ, and therefore male and therefore, priesthood as far as ordained individuals will be male.

So that's a given teaching.

So, do I accept that teaching?

Yes, I accept that teaching and it's not for me to accept it, it's the church that pronounces it.

However, I want to ask you something as I would maybe ask all Catholics, the most important thing for a person in their life is to attain holiness, right?

I mean, I don't care if you're a priest.

I don't care if you're a bishop, or even a pope.

The most important thing is holiness.

That's the gold that all of us seeks, holiness.

And if I were to ask you who the holiest person was in the last 100 years, and I had a whole congregation of Catholics, 80% of them without doubt would say Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

So if you're looking for roles, the role for all of us is to holiness.

And here it's achieved by a woman and a woman who makes a difference, not only for us as a church, but made a difference for the whole world.

- Catholic education, a lot of schools were closing 14 years ago when you came on, a lot of Catholic schools within the city of Milwaukee.

And now, as you said, you know, that was one of your priorities.

Can you talk more about why Catholic education was something that you took great pride in trying to really save in the archdiocese at a time that was very, very tenuous?

- Yeah, sure, well, first of all, I'm a product of Catholic education.

So when you go back to basically from kindergarten, right through my ordination as a priest, all of my training has been basically in Catholic school.

So I know the value of a Catholic education.

Now, I'm not saying that private education or public education doesn't do a good and solid job.

I think it does.

But what Catholic education does is it helps form.

And that formation is really an important aspect.

And when I would take a look at various studies, studies out of Notre Dame and other institutions, you would see the impact that Catholic education makes on a community.

And I didn't have to be convinced about that.

I kind of knew it in apocryphal sense, my own kind of experience with that.

And so therefore, to lose that would be to lose something which would contribute to the whole spirit of the church.

Take a look at the history in many of the diocese and archdiocese in country, many communities came in and, you know, they started to build schools even before they started to build church.

And they did that because they knew how important basically, the formation was for their children.

- The archbishop cannot officially retire until the Pope names a successor.

That'll do it for this edition of "10thirtysix."

Remember, you can always check us out on all of our social media platforms.

We will see you next time, thanks so much for watching.

(bright music)