Podcast For Hire

Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295

Steve Spilde: Today it is my great pleasure to welcome Lucy Abbott Tucker. Lucy has been a great contributor to the contemporary practice of Spiritual Direction. She was instrumental in the formation of the organization “Spiritual Directors International.” She has had decades of experience as a Spiritual Director. She has been a teacher of other Spiritual Directors. She now serves as a teacher of other teachers. We look forward to welcoming her this spring to the Franciscan Spirituality Center, where she will lead a workshop for our supervisors in the Spiritual Direction Preparation Program. Welcome, Lucy Abbott Tucker.

Lucy Abbott Tucker: Thank you very much, Steve.

Steve: Lucy, as we begin, a good place to start, I think, is, what is Spiritual Direction, in your understanding?

Lucy: For many years I described Spiritual Direction as a conversation between two people who believe in the reality of God, however that is named, where one person is primarily the speaker and the other is primarily the listener. We are trying to touch more clearly the presence and the activity of the sacred in the speaker. I like that definition, and I still use most of it. Several years ago, I listened to a TED Talk by a man named Simon Sinek. He talked about what makes organizations and people great – what helps them to stand out among others. He used three concentric circles, and the innermost circle was ‘why’; the second circle was ‘how’; and the largest circle was ‘what.’ He uses a lot of examples, and I would encourage you to listen to his podcasts. One example he used that always stuck with me was Martin Luther King. He said in the 1960s there were many great people speaking about civil rights. Why did Martin Luther King speak on the steps of the Washington Monument and have thousands of people listening to him? We all know the answer: He had a dream, [which is] his famous speech. But his dream was there are laws of God, and laws of men. Until those come together, we will never have justice and peace. Simon Sinek described that as the ‘why’ of his energy that made him stand out from others.

When I looked at my definition, I realized it didn’t have a ‘why’ in it. Why do I do this work? So now, I use the same words as I started out with, but I begin with, “Because I believe God is present and active in every moment of life, Spiritual Direction is a conversation.” That’s what Spiritual Direction is about for me: Touching that God presence that is always with us.

Steve: Thank you, thank you. … How do you spell Simon Sinek? How is his last name spelled?

Lucy: S … I … N … E … K. It’s a TED Talk. I can get you the exact title, Steve.

Steve: I think if people Google “Simon Sinek” and “TED Talk,” it will come up. Thank you for sharing that resource. It sounds like something I want to watch. … You do a lot of work for the organization called “Spiritual Directors International.” Could you tell us what is SDI? How did it form? How were you involved in that beginning?

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743

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Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295
Steve Spilde: Today I am excited to introduce Sam Rahberg. Sam is a presenter in our Spiritual Direction Preparation Program. He presents a weekend about “Introduction to Spirituality.” Sam is also a longtime supervisor in the program, helping our participants with their work. I know Sam to be an incredibly gifted presenter, and also a deep spiritual individual. It’s my pleasure to welcome Sam Rahberg.

Sam Rahberg: I’m glad to be here. It feels a little bit like people get to be a fly on the wall in great conversations you and I have had in the past. I’m looking forward to it.

Steve: As I usually begin these conversations, I invite people to explain their own spiritual tradition. As you were young, describe the spiritual atmosphere in which you grew up.

Sam: I was a church-working kid. I grew up moving tables and chairs with my dad at the end of every church function. We were part of a Lutheran church, and he was the Director of Christian Education. I like to joke that I had an 18-year-long internship with him about what it means to be a professional in the church, to be working in ministry. I grew up in that environment knowing not much different than the formal structures of the church. I was always hungry when we would talk about discipleship. Or when I’d hear about spirituality, I’d quickly chase down those types of texts and learning opportunities once I was an adult and able to recognize something was stirring. I followed on that trajectory. I still think of myself being involved in a ministry of sorts, although for the last many years I haven’t served professionally in a parish. My spirituality and my understanding of vocation and calling has shifted, with no less appreciation for parish work. I still admire most professors I had who would say, “You know I love you guys. I love what we’re talking about, but I would rather be with the people in the parish. I’d rather be serving in those intimate relationships than in an academic sort of setting.” They’re just different birds. I have a great deal of respect, and I had the good fortune of being able to support people in ministry – pastors and priests and deacons and lay leaders in congregations through spiritual direction or retreat formats, and [also] working one-on-one with people in supervision fields like equipping people for ministry.

Steve: You really grew up with a desire to be involved in that ministry. How old were you when that first desire came to your awareness?

Sam: Actually, in high school I had anything but that desire. I had a stretch where I was wanting to go to the Air Force Academy. I wanted to be a computer programmer. I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. One of my high school teachers said, “Sam, you ought to consider becoming a teacher.” I said, “Well, maybe.” And then I realized, you know what I know how to do? I know how to do churchwork. It’s already who I am, [and] it’s already what comes naturally, so I bit on that and I did go [and] become trained as a Director of Christian Education. Part of what I loved about that was that I was being trained and equipped to do the things that were feeding my own personal spiritual hunger, [and] that were giving me a way to integrate my study of scripture, my spiritual reading, [and] my deep conversations with people into the work that I was doing. And to this day, I’m grateful for that privilege, [and] that I continue to be called into conversations that reflect some of the things that are most important to my inner journey. I’m grateful for that. I haven’t always been appreciative when days are busy or projects are hard, but when I can remember those moments, I do appreciate it.

Steve: How long did you work in a parish setting?

Sam: I had a yearlong internship, and then I was in a parish...

Downtown Main Street
DMI
422 Main Street
La Crosse, Wisconsin
54601
(608) 784-0440

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Art Fahey joins us on this DMI podcast. Downtown has the college area, which is always fun for people to enjoy. I think of such a variety no myself for not being your lacrosse centering at the multiuse building sign in one day we might have a sports vacation shown the remaining efforts. The organic farmers conference and turn around and get high school basketball games coming in or entertainment that comes through so I think the shield of the varieties were small town feel people come in they feel safe will crosses embraces and welcomes all our guests and then realize how important our guest coming to the Aryans are local people coming to the downtown area are so I think is quite a warm reception everybody coming to the area so I think were unique in the beauty that we got as well) features a lot of things that neglect communities would look at art, say, is the director of the La Crosse Center in downtown La Crosse and a lot of things are happening down there, including the remodel of the La Crosse Center. Let's talk a little bit about the remodel to be tells is going on with the lacrosse in her care is the process it's going to take about almost 2 years to get completed. We had a renovation remodel of the arena, so this new seating in their sound system, lighting, HVAC, dressing rooms, locker room concession stands have all been remodeled were to be going in the outer court order that goes around the buildings that people have to go outside to navigate to the building and we put up a new North Hall called a noteholder call and that is ready to go. We are at now is called the punch list time where construction guys are going through. They really have turned the keys over for us for those two particular rooms that we still have construction guys are better available and you will a midway point through the first phase of the construction for part that still continuing as a number of meeting rooms and a volume that overlooks the Riverside that scheduled for the end of November to be completed and that there continuing with that process over the front Street area, which is adjacent to Riverside Park and will assign the building so we move along very well. You know it. If you ever look for a no light in the middle Kovacs and the construction crews that stay healthy throughout last actually progressed very well and very quickly. Overall, no work on time and on budget. It always is all good things there. As far as the overall construction venue absolutely destroys positive things to be on time and on budget. So art what will the impact of the remodel have on the downtown La Crosse area well you know when forecasting this we had economic impacts of increasing but the center could do for the downtown area in the range of $79 million a year that on top of already the 18 million it was doing so already and admit hi $29 per year economic impact for the area here. So now this is something that certainly has a direct impact on hotels and restaurants and shopping locations that are near to us by others sent ripples throughout the county. So it's something that can be beneficial to West Wisconsin because we slowly ramp up and get out of this code. People start meeting again and I will see the effects of this in our success with a lot of things we have here have been and made multiple small events and we see that continuing and we do have a large marquee event that comes through the multiple small vents is obviously the core of our success for the La Crosse Center, how many employees work for the La Crosse and well test test test code is created all kinds of fluctuations in pre-Covid, we had 15 full-time at about 300 part-time. So when we got in the Covid all, unfortunately, all part-timers and all were just the work form and we went from 15 full-time down to seven full-time now that were slowly coming back were starting to make plans and we have an escalating plan to add people back in. Based on the floor business. Now we we will have again somewhere in that 15 to 19 range of full-time people. Once we are considered at full steam and will be in at 250 to 300 part-timers again. Once we have everything back in place in the world stacked some consents and normal art. Let's look forward to the future to pass 2022. When things are back to running normally. What is the future look like for the La Crosse Center while you know what we've got is new meeting space is a different kind of meeting space here and were anticipating know that that will bring a different clientele down to us and always got a lot of floor space to tradeshows and go along with this and breakout space were looking for a lot more regional type of business coming our way, which I think was an area that we hadn't been delivering which certainly can be done now and we could see things coming out based on the Minneapolis are based on the lighting as well as island in Wisconsin to come our way related to some right things and some exciting things that you would be opening up the doors as you go along here and there's certain events that are to be large events that will also come our way here that will take up the entire building with the La Crosse Center expansion and everything art is La Crosse and are still going to be hosting like the big Moses vent that comes every year. Yes, that definitely was going to 2022 there making plans come back and be with us and is a featured event that does come to the building. A lot of people are aware of it and continue to come our way and so were looking for a long-term relationship will continue with the organic farmers organization part which have an impact as the downtown La Crosse area have when you have an event committed. Let's say the WIA basketball tournament was very important that our neighbors in the downtown area and are involved in greeting people just seating for 500 people in relation to the downtown and they're going to go out and have a cocktail and maybe a meal, and maybe do a little shopping you know you really set many people in a downtown you can quickly see where the restaurant that's 50 to 75 tears to be filled out fairly quickly, so they just need to be aware know if what were doing when relation peak, which is great communication between us and the commission has grown the downtown organization and DMI to let these folks know that they're coming to be in town and you will probably feel the effects of sin on hotels or to three days parking all comes into play. So we need to partners in the downtown area know to be able to welcome those folks = insane welcome this organization in the town and given the hospitality La Crosse is known for. Because these people are taking and not just La Crosse, and it is taken whole community. So art how much of a factor is that having a vibrant downtown is trying to sell the center to the prospective new client. I think that's important now. Each community got their own little sales point La Crosse certainly got ours without saying you know this but the back door and get the Mississippi River Riverside Park right here. Not hardly any community in the state of Wisconsin I can talk about the Mississippi River. So your features here that we sell are important to know in comparison to others.
That's why Vince move around taking those different things the city has you know we have things like the DMI what they do is they get the message out to all the membership and those are the ones downtown Main Street. To me those are the people that are wrapped right around this year and what we do and what they do you know are joined at the hip. If you will, and so the value of DMI having a communication and filling storefronts and giving people things to do once they leave our building that's important is if we didn't have a downtown. It was thriving like it is and how it can really make our guests coming to town to go for a little when I go Baptist because it is not much going on but the way our downtown is its active it's lively it's driving snow so DMI is a great job

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743

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From expectations to conversations. We offer all the services you would expect health first network provides quality confidential reproductive health care, education, and nutrition counseling this month's health first podcast features Karen Zimmerman service line manager for WIC Karen's work for the WIC program at health first network for 32 years so Karen who qualifies for the WIC program. The qualifying criteria are pregnant moms breast-feeding moms moms who have children under six months of age if you're not breast-feeding, and then kids up to the age of five in those households where those people reside that gross income needs to be under hundred and 85% of poverty which an actual dollar terms. Let's say you have a mom and dad and two kids. Your annual income grows, we need to be roughly under $48,500. So if you think about it. If you're making almost $50,000 a year as a family with two kids. That's a lot of people today that work in positions where that's what their income is that number is the thing that makes us different because we are designed to help those people that make more than would they be eligible for other resources and is a stop off program to write is not a you get your here forever. It's a were helping you to attain the next goal right and the other thing that we do that makes us so that it is that step off once a year everybody that participates in the program needs to come in and do another appointment where we reevaluate all the eligibility criteria roughly every three months where contacting people to do some follow-up education or another way, in a measure on kids to see how everybody's growing and it's an opportunity for us to provide that additional education for parents with young children because as you know they change rapidly and the problems they present change rapidly and we're here to provide that just one-on-one education to help parents do the best they can to help their children grow to be the best we do a health and a diet assessment because all the counselors like is that our dietitian. So that's our focus, so if you think of the well-child visit with the nutrition focus we don't do medicine. We don't do what the doctor does but we also are trained and can identify things that would warrant a hey this is something that you maybe want to give your doctor call about because this doesn't look quite right in the program called with women infant and children know that there's something over some single beds that are rich in kids with his grandparents in a region kids and it always blended families and families now is there a lot different than they used to be part of that work are they able to get help from work yes yes and those are ones to that we really struggled to reach because they don't realize that we're here to help them as well because the child is the one that's eligible for the program. So if the child meets the criteria for eligibility. Whether it's the grandparents raising the child that dad a foster child if they qualified they can qualify for as long as they meet the criteria. If, for example, a child qualifies for badger care. They most likely would qualify income wise, even if the say the child is with grandma and grandpa and they could get the help because the child is meets the criteria so it's all about helping the children helping the children and so we really encourage anybody that is interested in at least checking it out. We can screen them over the phone. That's a simple process with a phone call. There's also some online things that people can go to Whitcomb on strong where you can just fill in your information. Your information gets passed along to us and then we give you a phone call and we can have a conversation. There is another website through the state. That's called Wisconsin well badger which is a really cool website where people who are looking for some assistance in one type of thing or another Wisconsin well badger you can do it online or you can call the number that pops up when you're looking for that is process is easy if you were did come for an appointment. What happens is you get checked in. We do have some documentation that families need to provide like a piece of mail ID check stubs and then have a conversation about where the family wants to do better and set goals in three months they come back to see us or we contact them. Then were checking in and helping them do better whatever they want. For more information visit www.health1network.org or find us on social media at health first network

Downtown Main Street
DMI
422 Main Street
La Crosse, Wisconsin
54601
(608) 784-0440

Transcription for SEO only. A new Location and a new Executive Director DMI a.k.a. downtown MainStreet Inc. lacrosse is moving in the right direction with Terry Bauer the new Executive Director for downtown Main Street, Inc. Terry, what is downtown MainStreet Inc. it's an organization nonprofit concert with the city of La Crosse to ensure ongoing economic development while cultivating a relentless downtown BMIs membership driven organization Terry so one of the benefits of becoming a member of downtown MainStreet Inc. I think all of this is realize that their low storefront filled with businesses that the downtown community is much more vibrant and that works for all businesses solicit selfish interest to be part of downtown because it does build traffic promotions and events that create some vitality in downtown La Crosse and with the election without something like downtown MainStreet personals initiatives forward Terry that's working with the other organizations in the community, absolutely Bob, we have developed a synergy group which includes the explore lacrosse and concert convention and visitors Bureau Chamber of Commerce seven rivers Velasco and ourselves know-how, common theme to improve and enhance the La Crosse area featuring different strengths to the table. I think were better together about working together and working together to the missions kind of overlap with each other enough uniqueness with our missions and our memberships that it does broaden the base of appeal to our members to see my have a vision statement or a mission statement derivations to promote the vibrant downtown… Businesses, braces, history sober sculpture captures the spirit of community while enhancing the vitality of the entire region, which is probably what we are grouped together and that synergy group because we want to include the entire region in our marketing. A lot of our business here is certainly local in the tourist business that we do get this kind of icing on the cake tour businesses. We really need to get people living within 50 miles of lacrosse coming into lacrosse to shop dying and stay in hotels people enjoy walking around historic downtown La Crosse County talk where members Terry talk about investors rather than members and membership why you do that way. Why are they investors rather than members. I think words have meanings and is an investor, you have ownership part of the solution when you put in the downtown MainStreet and my investment is to generate a return for me so that's kind of the challenge that were faced with those following and going that investment return to those people that through our marketing efforts are events or promotions, just creating activity in downtown La Crosse. I want to see all our storefronts don't know the significant growth that have all storefronts don't to drive additional new business in the downtown La Crosse to get a hold of DMI number 608784 0440 784-0440 the website of La Crosse downtown.com ridiculous social media search for downtown MainStreet Inc. and get files on Facebook downtown is a place you want to be when you shop one live, work, play with a lot of unique shots downtown that you'll find anywhere else on the cross. Enjoy

Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295

Steve Spilde: Welcome. Today it is my pleasure to introduce Marcia Bentley. This is a pleasure for me because Marcia is a teammate. She serves as one of the leaders for the Spiritual Direction Preparation Program. Marcia is also a personal friend, and so it is a joy to talk to her. And beyond that, I’m excited because Marcia is one of the wisest and spiritually deep individuals that I know. She comes with a great deal of wisdom, and it’s a pleasure to make that wisdom available to a larger audience. Welcome, Marcia.

Marcia Bentley: Thank you, Steve. What a wonderful introduction.

Steve: As I often begin these conversations, I’m interested to hear you describe your family’s religious tradition.

Marcia: Good place to start. My family had a very strong Catholic identity. Both of my parents were born and raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools, never dreamed of marrying anyone other than another Catholic. That was the tradition we were raised in, so we went to Catholic schools. My parents were both very involved with the church. My mom was an organist. Both of my parents taught religious education, so it was really the culture of our family, an identity – even to the point, for instance, Sundays we would get up, have a big breakfast, go to Mass together. Then, Sunday afternoons … Sunday was a family day. We would do thing together. My dad owned a business, so he was busy six days a week. But on Sunday, he would spend time with us, and [those were] some of my most fun memories of childhood of coming home from Mass and deciding what we would do for the day, whether it would be something as simple as going to visit my grandparents or whether we’d go to the swimming pool or maybe parks, or even just sit around the living room and divide up the newspaper, and whoever got the comics first was the winner. It was just a friendly and happy and very nurturing upbringing in the Catholic Church.

Steve: It sounds very traditional, kind of like the image of what people would expect of a Catholic upbringing.

Marcia: Absolutely. And we lived in a neighborhood where so many of our neighbors were Catholic too, that it was just kind of reinforced in an unspoken kind of way. We were Catholics. We had Catholic friends, Catholic neighbors. It’s really its own subculture.

Steve: When you were young, how would you have described your image of God? There probably isn’t another word you would have used as a young person, but looking back at that age, how would you have described that image?

Marcia: Very much how God was taught to us in church and in school from a child’s viewpoint that God was this all-powerful man who lived in heaven, which was above the clouds. We would look up when we prayed to God. But for me, I guess a difference that I hear compared sometimes to other people’s perspective is that God was very loving. God was powerful, but God was loving as well. I think that was an underlying factor for my whole life, that I just trusted in this loving, wonderful God who was always with us.

Steve: What sort of situations would you feel particularly close to God at that stage in your life? Or do you have any particular memories of feeling particularly close to that sense of God?

Marcia: Good question. I guess I just felt close to God all the time. It was just this constant feeling of trust and love. But when I was a young child, I don’t remember this, but I was told that I used to write letters to God and then hide them under my bed because I knew God could see everywhere. So God would read those letters under my bed and no one else would find those. But when you talk about a particular experience, when I was in high school, it was during Lent and there was a tradition in the church where, on Holy...

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743

Jesse Scharfenberg CEO of health first network talking about how reproductive health affects other areas of health and why is health first network essential we provide reproductive health care and there's many people that would probably argue that reproductive health care isn't essential, but your whole body is connected from head to toe. So each system is so important have to jump in analysis of what how can it not be essential. I thought I heard a lot of the bigger hospitals suffered, turn people away from you know testing in birth control and seeing patients when you're at home alone. I'm just to say that what you doing right and that's really interesting. We've heard that we seem kinds of action had an increase in client caseload right now. During the Covid pandemic because individuals are being seen health systems for reproductive healthcare because there was certain subsets of services at health systems that were deemed nonessential and when I heard this and I was thinking unlike how is reproductive healthcare nonessential. It is such an essential part of your body. It controls pregnancy and controls STI there's UTIs. So it is some of the system is known as TI and UTI and STB and all the stuff what it would've yeah sorry I like to use alphabet soup last thing that is lying me out and that STDs were sexually transmitted diseases and then back in 2015 2016 timeframe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed it to STI which is sexually transmitted so that the same thing the same thing that STD STI is definitely interchangeable. We try to go with the new nomenclature of the STI so that we are in line with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are utilizing UTI is a urinary tract infection. So a lot of individuals may confuse that they have been STI but it could be a UTI or someone may think they have a UTI and is actually nasty so bring those individuals in for testing and treatment is super super important. So infections can travel. So it's really important that we are having and performing STI testing on a normal basis. One of the big things that we do is screenings for cancer health first when you thinking about breast cancer we do clinical breast exams all the time, was sometimes the first line of defense of identifying some sort of nodule that were to refer an individual out for mammogram we do pass in politics after a Pap smear, an individual may have been identified that they have cancer cells of the next things that we can do here is actually doing a cervical biopsy to identify what's going on in referring an individual out. It's really unfortunate that individuals would think reproductive health is essential in that education around reproductive health is not essential because a lot of these things that we see we could prevent there's so many essays that could be prevented if an individual just knew how to prevent it. So let's use a condom. Let's practice safe sacs. We offer the HPV vaccine which is human papilloma virus that something that's in controversy over the past 10 years. I don't understand why Dixon is the only vaccine out there that prevents cancer and at that it prevents nine strains of the most common cancer causing strains of HPV cancer is given to both boys and girls in humans about Boys and Girls Club and which was really really cool last year we actually changed the age range, so it used to be €11-€26 and now 27 to 45-year-olds can receive the vaccine as well so working and continue to prevent cancer in individuals who are already sexually active as well. How can that be nonessential. I don't know. It was really interesting when this came out there was a lot of reproductive health clinics that can put services just on hold. I took an initiative and worked with you to perceive Wisconsin collaborative for reproductive health. The Wisconsin contraceptive access network and then Wisconsin family-planning reproductive health Association, which I serve as president for and said hey we need to put something out there to let individuals know that reproductive healthcare is an essential service. Individuals should have the choice of when they want to become pregnant, they should have the choice to go in for STI testing if they are sexually active. We know during this timeframe. Individuals are not ceasing sexual activity. So let's give them the tools to do it safely. Whether that be condoms and whether that be education or let them choose when they want to become pregnant by letting them properly space pregnancies or just prevent pregnancy with a contraceptive method. One of the things that kind of has his big black cloud over is the word abortion. Abortion is not something we do at health first. My personal mission is that an individual should never be in the position to have to make the choice as to whether they have an abortion or not, because we should be preventing every single pregnancy that wants to be prevented education having conversation with your staff over the last few hours today but I've learned quite a bit. Do offer educational services. We do we accept quite a few different educational services and we continue to look at expanding those we going to schools and give many presentations around, pregnancy prevention, contraception, and then STI prevention so that individuals know what. STI's are. They know that if you can be sexually active, you may become pregnant and how do you prevent that we give community presentations. We've instituted a really awesome curriculum in the Adams Friendship school district. It's called top the teen outreach program and it's really about building self-esteem and then talking about sexual health. On top of that, so we want to give them a good base at the sixth grade level to hopefully prevent some of those unintended pregnancies and STI rates that we are seeing in Adams so we provide a lot of education around that we have individuals that just come in for education and they may not be coming in at all for reproductive hands-on services, but just education. We have another really cool partnership down in Adams Friendship. It's called the diversion program so we know that individuals once they are in the juvenile justice system, they're more likely to be repeat offenders and continue to have charges that become worse and worse and worse. So our goal is to keep individuals out of the juvenile justice system and in that county. We were seeing a lot of young individuals being referred over to the DA for consensual sex acts. So maybe it was 215-year-olds having sex. Maybe they were texting pictures to each other. Our goal is, whether it be the district attorney's social services. The school or local police department identifies that and they actually refer the individual over to us for consequence education. So taking the educational route versus a prosecution route with those individuals and we have the school Health and Human Services local Sheriff's Department local police department. The DA everybody's involved in what we do with this huge prevention aspect of we have these kiddos there identified go over education with them once they refer to us. We have the local women's shelter come in and provide healthy relationship education and then when that charge actually goes across the DA's desk. The DA can see that they actually went through the educational session and most likely are going to pursue charges to put them into the juvenile justice system

Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295

Steve Spilde: Welcome. I’m excited today [because] my guest is Sister Karen Lueck. She has experience as an educator, as a pastoral counselor, [and] as an author. She has been involved in leadership of the FSPA community, most recently serving as president. It’s my pleasure to introduce today Sister Karen Lueck.

Sister Karen Lueck: Thank you. I’m glad to be here, too.

Steve: As I often begin with guests, Sister Karen, could you tell me about your family’s religious tradition. Let’s get that grounded so we kind of know where you’re coming from.

Sister Karen: My family is Catholic, [and is] very grounded in being Catholic. We were from a small town, a German town, in Iowa. Everybody in the town was Catholic, except a stray Lutheran here or there. The town and the church were pretty much one, so everybody was both. We were very dedicated Catholics, I would say – just being very, very much Catholic.

Steve: When you were young, how would you have described the word “God?”

Sister Karen: I think it was always, for me, it was hard to do because I think I knew that God was somebody who really cared about me at some level. But what I heard from homilies and from the church a lot of time was that I was a sinner [and] I was bad. Therefore, the only way I would be able to get to close to God is by confessing my sins and being this perfect person. I think that messed with my head and my heart for a long, long, long, long time, and it still comes up at times, I think. On one hand I was very proud of being Catholic. I was very happy [and] was inspired by the rituals and that kind of thing. But it didn’t feed my soul in other ways.

Steve: People who know me know that I’m a big fan of Brene Brown, and I find her content on shame to be very helpful. But I know that you were studying shame at a deep level long before Brene Brown came along.

Sister Karen: Yes. I could have been the first Brene Brown. My professor said I should publish my work, but I never did.

Steve: Society wasn’t quite ready for it at the time.

Sister Karen: That’s it. That’s right.

Steve: Can you connect some of that work you did later in your academic study to some of those experiences you had as a kid, because it sounds like that was ambivalent. There were good things about that background, but there are also things that weren’t helpful.

Sister Karen: As I went through life, starting in my 20s or probably before that, [I was] always feeling a sense that I wasn’t good enough. As I look back now, I do say that a lot of it came from the religious beliefs or what we were hearing in church. I spent a long time – and at times I still need to revisit that – working on that shame because I kept saying to myself, ‘No, it can’t be that. I want to be feeling like I love myself, and that other people love me, too.’ I spent a lot of time doing therapy, reading books about shame. Then, like you said, eventually going to graduate school and having that be my main focus to look at especially women and their psychology and spirituality or theology. [I] therefore got into the feminist movement more, again feeling like going into that it would sever me from the church because I knew that that wasn’t something the church was really advocating – then or now, probably. I think I had to do that for myself to feel like I was OK. And as I grew through that, my relationship with God also changed because all of a sudden, now I was a good person, so God must be loving me all the time because that goodness is inherent in me, and it’s inherent in others, too. I started seeing myself as a good person and God loving me. It’s all combined, and to this day I am still learning how that is – what does that mean when I believe that I’m good,...

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The city vision 2020 podcast we started this thing off back in January 2020 and were already at December 2020. My first guest in this podcast was Mayor Tim Kabat and my final guest in this podcast for city vision 2020 is Mayor Kabat Mayor this year was kind of a cluster and he will challenge great when it was a challenge for all of that and made no looking back on January 2020. That seemed like that was about 10 years ago already like this year's particularly long and particularly challenging in a notary lot of folks that have shared with me that they're happy to see that the next year. All the challenge and in many ways and very, very difficult. I've been pleased and proud of how our community has responded to the most part and just people we can help people receive a lot of shop local efforts to help our merchants and just a lot of giving in and trying to be there for each other so that that part of it is obviously very positive and surprised me because I know that lacrosse community is about stealth and very very difficult in your heart goes out to those that have lost jobs and all that are struggling right now. Mary asking about Covid 19 and then the coronavirus at one time this past year lacrosse was in the national spotlight for being one of the places that had some of the most outbreaks in the in the country. What what was done to stop that spread you right we were in the muddy list of the stars being one of those hotspots in the entire country, and that's not where you want to be that the combination of people returning to school and unfortunately most of that community spread impacted not only the schools but then also our assisted-living and long-term care facilities. That was really a bad thing. There was and there has been really all throughout this especially around that time, you know, ramping up the communication, and context of those institutions that really trying to get people to do the right thing, which is to stay home and to wear a mask if you go out and do the social distancing of the good hygiene, so the collective group between the healthcare providers in the county health department and ourselves and other institutions really increase that level of communication that the universities also increase their level of testing. So they were really trying to identify their their young people and their students that that might be positive and the contact tracing as well that the county has been doing really trying to charge people and let them know if they've been exposed to in close contact with someone so those efforts have been that they set on going but they were really ramped up around the fall and you know those universities that can things were quarantined and and going more virtually their classes which also help being the mayor and then this time of Covid and seeing businesses shutter and shut down for a while and some have gone out of business that way on you man are not taking things personally because we do see a business or or you will find what the pros build and scale up in the storefront really is hard to not take this personally and unfortunately we lost some thing else and long-standing businesses here to this whole thing in, we did respond to the city again in the area were we really did try to do whatever we could resources we have available to provide grants to our local businesses. The program back in April named their we down to through our own efforts on that map to any care spending your federal stimulus but through our own efforts. We distributed close to half $1 million to about 80 businesses to try to help them out. And no, there are many of those that are still in business, but the challenging the committee's frustration is that we receive the businesses we see are our friends and neighbors who might be struggling will make them right off and the health really has to come from the level in that first round of stimulus checks and the Malones and in the PPP support the government provided to businesses again back in April and May was very positive and needed. It's just unfortunate that that will get you know there wasn't anything there hasn't been anything else sense and that really where needed it throughout the summer and fall now into winter to think that people can survive on all $1200 support back in April and make that last year or sketch that out to the whole year is that's just not possible in the same goes for the business support site we've been working hard to not only try to support our local and also to reach out to our federal and state partners to encourage them to morning were still hopeful that maybe will be something done to you in the next month or so that can help people in O'Mara looking back this year there hasn't been any playbook or anything in history that we could've compared this to Rosalie thing on the front lines being in a part of the decision-making to help out. The city will we be treated this as an you still treating it as a community emergency so we established our emergency management protocols back in late March, which is really a different way he goes about communicating and organizing itself so the organization you know being able to respond to not only to continue to provide our services. So we spent the year still doing all of the essential things, providing safe water and taking care of people's waste and garbage and recycling and having our public safety be a priority in an emergency response and no still fixed in the streets until you those things so be modified somewhat the approach and how we communicating within the department. You can think of been very positive because I don't believe are residents of the really missed a beat and how we have provided those services and then then the other part of that was the partnering and will work with those I mentioned earlier healthcare providers are county health department are businesses to really try to encourage and support them and slowing the spread of Covid 19 some cases the notes and positive and successful. In other cases, as you mentioned earlier will now number one in the country hotspot and still continue to have high case numbers not gone as well so you know that, coupled with trying to provide grants for businesses to keep them going in and partnering with our nonprofit provide assistance in trying to prevent conviction. It has been below the there's been challenges almost on every front and we have responded pretty well, but it'll be interesting to see take a step back a year or two from now and really analyze what worked and what didn't do that to care for the Mexican community emergency that might come along in O'Mara's we have this last conversation for the 2020 vision podcast. I want to bring up some of the nice things and some of the good things the city is done like the fixing up of a lot of the roads there's a lot of stuff that happened at the different parks there's been you know the movement downtown with the La Crosse Center. I mean there's a lot of great things that happen this year as well and I think we have been all in all considered. We still maintain are those services and need to get that close libraries and we closed parks and beaches in our swimming pools and some of those things which were a disappointment to our our residents that we also expanded and added more miles of trails this year so people have the opportunity to get out more areas of the city on our trail network which I think is really phenomenal and like you mentioned are very significant renovation and expansion of La Crosse in the downtown is moving forward to be a beautiful addition that this guy lying in and we connection to the park and the river is spectacular and people are very excited to see that any of the other the other projects in an effort to will working on just again taking care of the business. The I will be breaking ground in the new fire station on the north side early next year on the road work in trying to just be the thing that people expect you know what their hard earned dollars in the pot contact that they pay trying to meet those expectations and I think no, all things considered, to get a good job this year, give or take away or get good memory. Good thought about 2027 or later or lead to an earlier that's just how people in our area have come together and there's been a number of separate to raise money for local businesses before you can about the marketing of topping local and just reinforcing how important it is that our our dollars stay here in the community have been very pleased and impressed with how many people I see on social media and no talking and communicating with people around around the city just that Patrick is been really pleasing to you and and and am hopeful that some businesses going during this very difficult times. I think that's probably the biggest thing is yes. 2020 think for everyone. Probably not on their top 10 list of favorite gears, but I think that the community response and somebody is trying to get through a shows how how resilient crosses and in the meanwhile look forward to brighter days ahead to share you know when we started this podcast were talking about looking at 2020 is that it is a great year. What did you want to get accomplished this year. That didn't happen. I would question that there's probably a few of the of the projects that just get longer you will be will delayed a little bit because of the need to respond to Covid I think about the Riverpoint district that still moving forward. I think that was delayed a little bit because of Covid