Episode 72: Jim Copple: The Radical Idea That Fasting Could Heal a Divided Nation

What if the antidote to polarization isn’t a louder argument, but a quieter practice of showing up, listening, and serving together? Grantley sits down with Jim Koppel—educator, coalition-builder, and cofounder of Strategic Applications International and Servant Forge—whose career stretches from late-night ride-alongs with a gang unit to shaping national prevention policy and facilitating 21st century policing reforms. The thread through it all: proximity changes outcomes. When people meet face to face, when training centers de-escalation and culture, and when youth have real jobs and mentors, communities get safer.

We unpack the five protective factors that keep young people on track—hope, caring adults, skills, control, and altruism—and why employment quietly powers them all. Jim shares what 20,000 listening-session voices taught his team about fear, bias, and structural gaps like language access that distort incident reports and deepen mistrust. We also examine how the Minneapolis Police Department reframed training around the sanctity of life, showing how policy and practice can diverge across agencies and why curriculum quality matters as much as length.

Then we pivot to the Freedom Fast, a civic invitation rooted in American history and embraced across faiths and the nonreligious alike: six monthly fasts on the fourth leading to July 4. Fasting here is broad—food, social media, or anything that creates room to reflect. The aim is simple and demanding: pause, relate, and serve beyond the headlines. As states consider resolutions and communities pilot models, we make the case that a more perfect union is built in small, repeatable acts—on front porches, in plazas, at the mailbox.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a neighbor, and leave a review to help others find the show. Ready to take the next step? Join the Freedom Fast at thefreedomfast.us, send us a text from the show notes, and tell us how you’ll show up this month.

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Transcript

Welcome And Jim’s Origin Story

Grantley Martelly 0:08

Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at the intersection of faith, race, and reconciliation. And I'm your host, Grantley Martelly. Welcome back to Above the Noise, our podcast on Faith, Race, and Reconciliation. Today my guest is Jim Koppel, and you're going to enjoy this episode. We have a number of things to talk about. Jim and his wife are co-founders of SAI Incorporated, a private consultancy company, and also of the Freedom Fast, among other things. And as we get into the topic today, we're going to talk about those things. So, Jim, welcome to the program.

Jim Copple 0:58

Grantly, thanks for having us. We're very excited to be a part of this.

Grantley Martelly 1:02

Tell us a little bit about you and your family, what you do, so that people, our audience, can get to know you, Jim.

From Classrooms To Combating Gang Violence

Jim Copple 1:09

Great. Well, I was uh born in Kansas City, moved to Seattle, Washington when I was 16 years old. I always had a history, an interest in history and in politics. I went to college in Boston, the Eastern Nazarene College, and then Boston College, and I went to Nazarene Theological Seminary as well. But in all those educational experiences, I was involved in our local community. I have a strong emphasis or concern about social justice issues. And I evolved into having been a college professor to a public high school teacher in Garden City, Kansas, and Wichita, Kansas. And in Wichita, I took kind of a major shift. We had a major youth gang violence problem in the Midwest. Gangs were involved in a lot of activity from inner on Interstate 35, moving from Texas up to Minnesota. And Wichita was on Interstate 35. And my superintendent of schools walked into my office one day and said, substance abuse and youth violence is increasing in this district. Fix it. And so I wound up organizing a coalition of prevention, treatment, law enforcement, and community activists. And we got a lot of national attention with the projects that we were doing. And from that experience of three years, 18 months of that, I rode with our gang unit doing street interventions four nights a week in Wichita. The gangs gave me a street name, it was Clipboard, which wasn't the most macho title, but nonetheless, it reflected that I was always carrying a clipboard, interviewing these gang kids about what was going on. And uh they got a lot of national attention. Time magazine, Rolling Stone magazine wrote articles on what we were doing. I was invited to move to Washington, D.C. by President George H.W. Bush at the last six months of his term, the President's Drug Advisory Council, to start a new organization called Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. And while I was there, I wrote the Drug-Free Communities Act, which has put close to $2 billion in local communities dealing with substance use and focusing on prevention and treatment. Then I went to the National Crime Prevention Council. I worked on youth violence and substance use. And then Colleen and I decided to start our own firm, which is Strategic Applications International, and Servant Forge, which is our nonprofit that works in East Africa and works in a number of communities in the United States. While there, I was at the uh servant at Strategic Applications International. We were asked uh by the Department of Justice to facilitate President Obama's task force on 21st century policing, uh, which came about 10 years ago after a lot of police shootings, particularly the Ferguson uh uh incident. And so we facilitated that task force, issued 52 recommendations that went out to the country, and uh it was had a major impact on the way police do police reform and the way policing conduct their relationships with the community. Five years ago, after the murder of George Floyd, we were asked by John Bridgeland, who was then the chief domestic policy advisor for George W. Bush, or had been uh Bush's chief domestic policy advisor, why are we still shooting people of color? Uh and um we started an initiative called Act Now. I wanted to listen to people. I wanted to go into neighborhoods and parts of the country that are not normally invited to the table to talk about police community relationships. And um, Colleen and I set up these listening sessions. We've listened to over 20,000 people in the last five years and over 1,400 line officers, rank and file officers. And uh last fall we issued a report called Report to the Nation, uh, youth deflection and community safety, keeping young people out of the criminal justice system.

Grantley Martelly 5:24

Let's talk a little bit about uh some of the work that you've done there. Uh in the in the initiative with um ACT Now and that question about, you know, why are we shooting people of color in this country, what are some of the things that you found out, some of the things that you learned in that study?

Building National Coalitions And Policy

Jim Copple 5:44

The probably the most significant thing was youth employment. Kids are at great risk. Uh we a longitudinal study on youth uh development that was done, a 20-year longitudinal study, showed that if kids have hope, young people have hope, something that pulls them into the future. You can use the word faith, uh something that gives them a reason to get up in the morning. If they have significant adults in their lives, if they have acquired skills, I don't care if it's academic, if it's music, if it's sports, something that they can celebrate. Fourth is locus of control, where they feel like they have a voice in shaping their own future. And then fifth or lastly, was altruism, an opportunity to give something back. But behind all of that, we discovered that youth that are gainfully employed or have the opportunity for employed are less likely to be involved in youth violence, substance abuse, rates of teenage pregnancy fall significantly. Uh, it's a protective factor. And so probably the key learning that we had was developing skills, something that young people can engage in and find meaningful employment. And so, quite frankly, in our Act Now project, we're in our third round of funding from uh Walmart Foundation, is that we're working, focusing heavily on youth employment uh to keep young people out of the criminal justice system.

Grantley Martelly 7:12

Okay. So that focuses on the young people and giving them, helping them have purpose and hope, and you know, getting back to the saying that anything about us should include us in order to find solutions, uh, altruism and being involved. What but what did you find out about when you did the policing study about why are there so many negative interactions between police and uh people of color?

Act Now: What Communities Told Us

Jim Copple 7:42

Training and uh Brian Stevenson, who is one of the members of the task force on 21st century policing and have the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama, wrote a book called Just Mercy. And in fact, there was a movie based on his life and what he the work he had done. He says he talks about the concept of proximity, that if you create relationships and you really begin to listen and engage people, uh, you have a greater chance of influencing outcomes of behavior. And so figuring out ways in which police could have proactive conversations with the community, and the community also having proactive conversations uh with the police. And so being present, listening. And a big part of that was training and focusing on building the capacity of law enforcement to better understand and to work with the community, to understand the cultural distinctions that often take place in some of these communities, to better appreciate the forces or influences of poverty and uh the things that put people at risk. And those voices, quite frankly, and the discussions around police reform for the last 20 years or longer have been, it's usually the usual suspects that get invited to the table, the normal organizations. And it seldom reaches into the neighborhoods where communities feel either they're over policed or underpoliced, depending on the neighborhood and the environment. So looking at policies and procedures to get police out of their cars and into the neighborhoods so that they're listening and talking to people, it you have less likely of a chance. And we're seeing that quite frankly, Grantly, today in Minnesota. The Minneapolis Police Department, since George Floyd, has focused heavily on de-escalation, also on what it means to really uh what they call sanctity of life. In any kind of encounter, everybody goes home at night. And so to be able to de-escalate uh generally most uh uh violent of confrontations between police and communities is something that could have been deferred and uh by just simply stepping back and slowing down. And quite frankly, uh what we're seeing is a difference in training between the Minneapolis Police Department and ICE. Um it's a difference in the length of training and also the content or the quality of training. Uh, it's a big deal.

Grantley Martelly 10:14

So Yeah, it is a big deal. I mean, we're seeing lots of unrest, lots of um people in the street, and just this weekend we had another person killed by ICE on the street. Yeah and there's a lot of questions about that and and how they're how their reaction and the use of force there. It's interesting that you you found things about training and proximity because um if you go back in this podcast, uh I've had two interviews with a police chief of Kent Washington, and I asked him the same question, and he also came up with the same answer, two of the same answers. I'm sure your study has a lot more in it, and obviously, in a podcast that's not dedicated to the study, we're not gonna get to all of them. But he he found that proximity and training was also influencing his department. So one of the things that that he did was he now requires that any recruit that gets accepted into that police department must do an internship with a community nonprofit before they go to the academy that puts them in the community where they have to go out and interact with people in the community. Otherwise, he will not accept them in his police department. They actually have to do that. What he's found is that many of the officers are coming back with a completely different view of the community.

Why Police Encounters Go Wrong

Jim Copple 11:46

It's brilliant, and that's exactly the kind of thing that needs to be happening. And a number of departments are doing similar things. It's interesting. In Portland, Oregon, uh, there's a program called Talk a Mile, and uh where police recruits uh literally are matched up with uh young people, high school age. They literally walk a mile, and there are facilitated questions where they get to know each other. And in the course of getting to know each other, uh the response of the recruits has been amazing about what they discovered, what they learned and appreciated, about a lot of the conditions, the the social determinants of health, we call it. It's the those various things that influence certain kinds of environments that contribute to crime, violence, poor health, substance abuse, et cetera. So, yeah, that's a great strategy uh to require that.

Grantley Martelly 12:45

Yeah, and it has been working very well. Yeah. One of his comments to me was that at first people were resistant to it, and many of the other police chiefs were resistant to it in the area, because you know they have their regional police chiefs associations. And now that he's done it, many of the other departments are beginning to implement it because they see the results of how the officers are coming back and saying different things about the community. And one of the things he said, which also ties to Minneapolis and what's going on there with ICE, is that some of them work with refugee resettlement agencies. And he was talking about some of the officers who went in the middle of the night, two or three in the morning, to welcome refugees and their families into the country at the airport and uh and take them to the hotel for the night and then work with them to get housing, get to know the kids. And then when they got to be police officers, they would see the same kids on the street, and the kids would see them, and it was more of a oh yeah, hi officer, how you doing, that kind of stuff, more than being afraid of them. Yeah. Because the other thing that we found, and I don't know if you found this in your study, was people coming to the United States and in most Western countries, police are seen as friendly, as people you can talk to, people there to help you, even though some communities don't see that, right? But overall, you know, many in the in the communities of color still see that like you talk about over policing, but most people see it as positive. And lots of people who come to the United States are coming from countries, especially refugees and asylum seekers, where police are not seen as your friend.

Jim Copple 14:26

That's right. Yeah, but different cultural contexts. We've done a lot of work in Kenya where police are feared. When they migrate to the United States and they see a different attitude or a different approach, uh it's it's a cultural conflict and difference in the way people respond. And for officers to understand that and to begin to appreciate it, uh, changes the way they engage, or at least it should change the way they engage uh immigrant populations.

Grantley Martelly 14:55

Yeah, and and that that that's the whole purpose of that, to see that and to understand that. And then the language barriers, right? Understanding that you may need to call for somebody to help with translation. And one of the things we spoke about was, you know, that negative interaction at first, the person may not necessarily be resisting or angry. They may be trying to tell you, I don't understand.

Jim Copple 15:19

Well, it's interesting.

Grantley Martelly 15:20

But they can't, they can't, they can't express it.

Proximity In Practice: Training That Works

Jim Copple 15:23

I have to tell you, years ago we did a project in King County, and we interviewed 127 different people, and uh, and it was over the King County Sheriff's Department use of force. And at that time, Sheriff Reikert, who then became Congressman Reikert, um, asked us to come in and figure out what was going on. And one of the things we discovered, and it was a story I'll never forget, a woman said that her father, who was an immigrant, had been involved in a car accident, and it was clearly the fault of the other person. But because her father couldn't speak English, the report was taken by the police officer of the English-speaking person who was the guy who was it was his fault. The voice of her father was completely left out of the discussion. And uh, when that happens, um, the inequities that are associated with that, just that language barrier, can be significant unless police have been trained to understand what's going on here. You know, we can understand the guy who committed the offense, but we can't understand the person who's the victim. And it changes the way they respond. And uh training uh addresses that issue, or at least it should.

Grantley Martelly 16:42

Also on this topic, you said that you made recommendations to the 21st century policing and for the Obama administration. How many of those recommendations were accepted or implemented? Do you or do you know that?

Jim Copple 16:57

Well, it's difficult to measure. The one thing it would it did do is there, and probably even still today, there isn't a chief that is hired in this country that is not asked to take a look at the uh president's task force on 21st century policing. It uh had 52, 57 actual recommendations, and uh that they would be familiar with them in terms of the sections on trust, on technology, on community, on training, all those different categories. And so they was an understanding or an appreciation that they could not they would not be considered unless they were familiar with that task force report. And so various departments implemented things immediately. Other departments, it's taken a while. Uh, you know, we have 800,000 law enforcement officers in this country and 18,000 uh law enforcement agencies. And most departments, about 70% of the departments, maybe 80%, uh, are less than 100 uh officers. And um, so you got a lot of rural and smaller uh departments. Uh I'm confident that the International Association of the Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, and the 670 uh academies, police academies in this country, they train around the president's task force those recommendations.

Grantley Martelly 18:25

You also spoke about community policing. What what is your definition of community policing and how how did the report or your studies show that's the best way to do community policing?

Jim Copple 18:36

Where communities are engaged in the policing process. That is, they're also involved in hiring, where they're involved in uh budget development and where policing are being deployed, but it's also understanding your neighborhood and the businesses, the faith communities, understanding the people that you're working with in policing. I mean, it's a small thing like in our gang work. Um, you know, our gang unit wore soft uniforms, polo shirts and slacks. They didn't wear the hard uniforms or all the utility belts that were on because it automatically suggested confrontation. And so just small things and steps like that where the community is engaged, but where police is listening to the community to help shape the kind of policing that neighborhood wants and needs.

Grantley Martelly 19:34

Some exciting news. We've added two new features to the podcast. Now you can send me a text directly from each episode while you're listening. If you like what you're hearing, just go to the show notes and click on the link send text. While you're there, you can also now support the show and buy me a coffee. Do this by clicking on the link support the show. Or you can go to your browser and type in buymeacoffee.com forward slash above the noise. And thanks for your support. Let's change the topic a little bit and get now to the other thing that you did, that you the other work that you do. By the way, I really appreciate you doing that where I find it fascinating that you got you get to do that kind of work and to be in the communities and dealing with these tough topics. It seems to me that your business, SAI, is involved in getting people to learn to have tough conversations in a positive way. Is that correct? Very much so.

Language, Culture, And Use Of Force

Jim Copple 20:44

Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Um I mean we we kind of say that we come alongside communities to help develop their capacity to generate resources to address a mission. And that mission is is very much anchored in building relationships. I don't care what it is, if it's policing, education, public health issues, poverty eradication. It's about how you understand and work alongside your community. So last spring, I was looking or realizing that we were approaching the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, recognizing that the Declaration of Independence wasn't for everybody. It wasn't for people of color, particularly slaves, Native Americans, or women. But the Constitution uh that came along about 11 years later talked about creating a more perfect union. And so we have been doing that over the past 250 years to address some of those issues. The other thing I realized that uh part of my background is I was trained as a minister. I went to seminary, I was ordained in the Church of the Nazarene, and um I was curious about as a historian. In, which my doctoral work is, is in history, about the role of faith in the creation of our republic. And I'm not talking about a specific faith, because the reality was that it's very pluralistic. In fact, there was a significant debate in the first Continental Congress as to even whether or not the Continental Congress, which produced the Declaration of Independence, should even be opened with prayer or not. They finally concluded that it could be, and then they eventually hired the person who did that prayer to be the chaplain of the Continental Congress. That Continental Congress, I discovered, had two fasts where they literally paused to reflect and made a sacrificial gesture to work toward a common good. And fasting became part of the DNA that helped shape this country. Washington during the revolution called for a fast. Eventually Lincoln called for three fasts and uh and four days of thanksgiving during the Civil War. Fasting as an act to sacrifice something for a greater good, to pause, to relate in dialogue, and then to serve were critically important. And I thought, what would it take for us as a nation today, in 2026, as we approach the commemoration of the 250th anniversary, if we reinstituted if diverse religious traditions, in fact, 16 of the world's major religions have fasting as part of their tradition or practice? That what if we all paused out of e pluribus unum, out of many one, where all the many different faiths and traditions pause, relate, and begin to dialogue, and then find a way in which to serve together. That it might change the way we do our dialogue. And we're so polarized as a country that recognizing ways in which we could come together, we don't all have to agree on everything, but there should be in a democracy an opportunity for safe and civil discourse. And uh that's what the Freedom Fast is about. We're mobilizing communities, uh, colleges, uh, workplaces, uh, to begin thinking about how a fast could work or apply to them in their community. That's it at the heart of what we're trying to do in this project. And it's called the Freedom Fast. The Freedom Fast. And you can get more information about it.

Grantley Martelly 24:31

Yeah.

Jim Copple 24:31

Yeah, the Freedom Fast. You get more information at the freedomfast.us, our website. And uh uh uh it kind of gives you ideas if you sign up and indicate well one of the things that we're doing, Grantly, is we're having uh six days of fasting on the fourth of every month leading up to the fourth of July. And uh we're calling on communities, faith communities uh of all different backgrounds uh to pause that day to do something. It could be a fast from social media, it could be a fast from whatever a priority is in your life that you would like to give up as a sacrifice temporarily in order to pause and reflect on the values that shaped us as a country and on the values we need to capture again in order to go forward for the next 250 years. A call uh for people to slow down and talk to each other and listen to each other. Listening itself is a form of fasting where we sacrifice a bit of our time and our effort to listen to somebody's concerns or issues. And I'm convinced that proximity and in that context of proximity, listening to people uh is something critically important. I mean, I'm going to a place tonight, in fact, that I know there are differing political views, differing views of religion, etc. And it could be combative, it could be confrontational. But I discover in those situations, if I go in prepared to listen first, I don't have to win an argument. Uh it's uh a healing uh experience.

Grantley Martelly 26:36

So as a as you're doing the freedom fast, you said it's the six days, one per month leading up to the 4th of July.

Jim Copple 26:44

Yeah.

New Listener Features And Support

Grantley Martelly 26:44

Is this going to be centrally coordinated through the website, or are you asking people to do it in their local communities or churches or how tell us a little bit about the logistics of how you want people to execute the freedom fast?

Launching The Freedom Fast

Jim Copple 26:58

It's a little bit of both. We're asking people to sign up or register and then to do what's appropriate for their community and their their organization, their family, their group. Uh we've had several families sign up that have committed on February 4th. They're going to pause and they're going to fast that day and then have a conversation about the values and principles that the Declaration of Independence promised this nation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They will then tell us what they did and they'll report back to us in their conversation. What we hope to do is other communities, excuse me, and other uh organizations sign up, that we get model programs that people can replicate and we could share and interact. We want to capture the information as best as we can so that we can share it and encourage others. Because I'm convinced that this is going to go beyond July 4th, 2026, that communities will find a way to continue the conversation or organizations will find a way to have these conversations in the workplace and elsewhere. That the Freedom Pass becomes a place where you can go on our website and find ideas and think about what it is to pause, to relate and dialogue, and then to serve. And um, if we can move the needle on the getting beyond the polarization, uh a technology that we're using in this project, uh using AI technology, is capturing some of these conversations, re and letting AI generate a report that creates visualization or symbology, pictures or images of the conversation that people can relate to. It's an interesting new way to do facilitation. And we think it we've got some evidence that it really produces better dialogue.

Grantley Martelly 28:51

Is there like a handbook that people can have access to and printed ideas that they can get access to? And how do they get access to those?

Jim Copple 29:00

You register on the website and you'll get a guide on what you can do for the six days of fasting and other uh activities that you could do throughout. And so the guidebook gives you specific content and uh strategies uh for implementing the Freedom Fast.

Grantley Martelly 29:19

Do you have to be a pastor or a leader or a community leader to do this, or anyone can do it?

Jim Copple 29:26

Anyone can do it, and we hope anyone does it, and everyone does it. Uh we hope pastors do, we hope organizations get engaged and understand it. Workplaces, we have several companies that are going to do it and have these conversations in the workplace, uh, where difficult conversations can sometimes take place and produce conflict. But we're we're hoping individuals sign up. In fact, I saw something yesterday. Uh, two people had signed up that are doing it just personally. You know, I don't belong to a family organization, but I am going to do this. I want to figure out a better way to communicate and to understand my neighbor and my friends who I may differ with.

Grantley Martelly 30:09

So it seems to me then that if companies are doing it and and small groups are doing it like couples or two or three people, it is not necessarily asking then for religio it's a religious fast. I mean, it can be religious if you choose to do it to your church, but if you are not affiliated, you can still do it like in a corporate setting.

How To Participate And Lead Locally

Jim Copple 30:35

Um Yeah, fasting, it's interesting. Fasting has become a health thing as well. Uh, there are a lot of people who have no religious orientation or affiliation who uh do intermittent fasting uh to deal with their diabetes or their their overweight, and to really use that time uh to pause and to reflect and uh to think about your relationships uh from your family through your congregation or the place of worship. Um we had a Muslim leader reach out to us as well early on in our discussion about this and said that he was determined to not only fast, but also figure out ways to break the fast, which is part of Ramadan, and uh a big part of it, what we could do to celebrate together and to break the fast. In fact, after on February 5th, the plan is we're gonna have kind of a uh a webinar on how what you can do to break the fast, things that you could do to celebrate uh when you've come together as a group or as a congregation or however uh a religious organization or entity that wants to participate.

Grantley Martelly 31:45

Yeah, Islam is really good at that through through the Ramadan uh process and then breaking the fast in the evening and having community, then having eid at the end of the fast. You know, they really have a good model for that community. Absolutely do a community conversation that we can learn. Those of us who are not of the Muslim faith, we can learn from them.

Jim Copple 32:08

Yeah, we're working with Interfaith America, which is led by Ibu Patel, who is a Muslim leader, a Rhodes scholar, uh who set up Interfaith Youth Corps, uh, encouraging young people to volunteer across faith traditions and working collaboratively together to do service projects. And um I'm I'm finding as we do this, I come out of the Christian tradition. I'm a church historian. I understand church history and my own theology, etc. But I am excited about what I'm learning about different faith traditions, and that in this country, pluralism is the heart of who we are. And it's not a it's not by accident that in the Declaration of Independence, it says we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. They didn't say we're endowed by Jesus, or they didn't say we're endowed by God, but they said by our creator. However, you want to fill that in. And the the the framers of the Constitution were very intentional about using language that all traditions. At the time of the Constitution, or the writing of the Declaration of Independence, where the colonies had about 3 million total population, there were about 2,000 Jews and a few scattered Muslims, plus the religious traditions of the indigenous populations that already lived here. And uh they wanted this declaration uh in its goal and the constitution to be for all people. Yeah.

Grantley Martelly 33:49

So tell us then when the f the freedom fast starts in February and goes until July.

Jim Copple 33:54

July for sure, and then probably beyond. We anticipate a number of activities to carry this on uh as people begin to reflect and think of the development of our constitution. But we hope also in terms of them thinking locally, we're asking state legislatures to adopt resolutions uh supporting or endorsing uh the Freedom Fast. In fact, the state of Indiana will probably be the first state to do that.

Grantley Martelly 34:18

That's that's very interesting. Very interesting.

Jim Copple 34:22

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly 34:23

So if you if you want more information about the Freedom Fast, it's freedomfast. The FreedomFast.us.us. Yeah. And then your other company, SAI, how do people get a hold of you for that work?

Jim Copple 34:40

It's SAI-dc.com.

Grantley Martelly 34:45

SAI-DC.com.

Jim Copple 34:47

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly 34:48

So Jim, as we as we turn the corner here to to head towards home, uh, what are three things that you would like our audience to take away from this conversation?

Fasting Across Faiths And Breaking Bread

Jim Copple 34:58

That we have a great foundation as a nation. We need to rediscover the principles around which that foundation was built. And we need to find ways to dialogue, to engage in conversation. And the third is I would put it this way show up, be present. It's interesting. I'm I had a congregation in the church I attend yesterday about the fact that across the country, uh organized religion is seeing a complete breakdown. People are just not attending. And yet there's a quest or interest in spirituality. And so showing up in those conversations, being present, being present in your neighborhood, there's an issue. I um I was sort of blown away this weekend looking at the thousands that turned out in demonstrations. And demonstrations and protests is one thing, but actually doing something in your community to drive change and to be a part of the change, uh, it requires you to be present uh consistently and persistently. I I'm a social activist and a social justice activist. I've participated in any number of demonstrations and been arrested several times in those course of those actions. And while some of it I believed did drive some change, today we've sort of gotten used to massive protests. But where's the action?

Grantley Martelly 36:30

What happens after the protest? What happens after the protest? What are you doing afterwards? Go back home to your regular way of life, or do you go back home and engage with your community? You know, one of the things that I always think about, and I was thinking about this the other day, as thinking about how to engage in community and people talking, like coming into my neighborhood, I don't know about yours, but you come into your neighborhood, and we live in a in a cul-de-sac, and we have 54 homes, and we try to know our neighbors well, and they have a lot of kids and different things. But what I find out is that unless you're intentional, it's easy to drive into your neighborhood, wave your hand at your neighbor, you know, open your garage door, drive in, you know, walk up there and hit close button, how you're in your house, right? And all we do then is just share cut our neighbor. But do we actually take the time to go out and have a conversation? How you doing, you know, talk about those conversations. Seems to me like we sort of built our communities around this isolation. You be you be friendly to be politically correct, but how do you then come out of the house on your front porch or wherever, or standing on the corner and actually have conversations with your neighbors and with people.

Jim Copple 37:51

Or that it's often driven by crisis. A couple of months ago in our neighborhood, uh, we had a five-year-old girl at night walk out of their house, and the family was in panic. Nobody knew what where she went. It was dark, and uh we live on a golf course, and uh there's some w wooded areas close to it that could be threatening. And uh they put it on the Facebook page, and everybody turned out to look for her. And uh they were scouring and they found her. She was what was safe and she was okay, but it was amazing to see everybody turn out, and all of us kind of looked at each other and went, we don't know each other. You know, the fact that it took a Facebook post to get us out of our houses looking for a five-year-old child, you know, should tell us something. And so there's been a movement in our neighborhood to do things to bring people together and uh and to get people to show up and to be present.

Pluralism At America’s Core

Grantley Martelly 38:55

Yeah, we've been trying to do that in our neighborhood too. You know, we have the because we realize the same thing. Uh we have the night out that we try to do together, get people together. Our our neighborhood is pretty international and diverse. And some of the young people came to my wife and said, Um, we would like to have an international dinner. Would you sponsor it? Would you at that time I was on the HOA Association, you know, would you talk HOA board? Would you talk to your husband about sponsoring this? So she said, Yeah, and we put it out there to our neighbors. And now every year we have this international dinner revolution park down there. Everybody brings a dish from their country, spend time together. But again, you have to be intentional, right? And every year the question comes up, are you gonna do it again? Are you gonna do it again? Right? And it's and what we've realized it's so easy for that to fall through the cracks. Yes. You know, I'm busy, you're busy, we go here, we go there. And then we lose touch with the community, you know, and some of those kids are getting married now, and there are other kids. But I guess I'm I'm saying this because in our modern society, it is it is easy to be isolated and to be in our own world, and the television, the television and the computer screen becomes our world. Yes, but the people across the street from us, the people in our neighborhood, are we really getting to know them? Can we learn from them? Can we actually spend time together?

Jim Copple 40:28

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly 40:28

Compare that to when we my wife and I love to travel and lots of time in countries in the Caribbean and in some Asian countries and stuff. People sit outside in the afternoon, in the evenings and talk to their neighbors, right? Exactly. And they're just talking. And it's a lot of times it's not not constructed around, you know, our freedom fast or anything. It's just everyday conversations with people talking to each other. And sometimes I say, what can we do in our neighborhoods, even in our churches? You know, our pastor said two weeks ago, we need to get to know each other. We don't really know each other, even though we come to church together. Yeah.

State Resolutions And Tools

Jim Copple 41:11

You know, it's interesting. I've done a lot of work in Spain. And what I love about Spain at night, they eat their dinners are late, about nine or ten o'clock at night. But before they go in for dinner, they're walking around the plaza. They're just outside walking. And one of the things that we're doing in the Freedom Fast is we're encouraging people to take pilgrimages, short pilgrimages. It may be a historical site in your community or neighborhood where you walk together. That's part of what happened in Talk a Mile in Portland, is that people walked and talked. And that taking a pilgrimage, recognizing or honoring some historical place or some religious place. I mean, I have a place here in Utah that I love to hike to. And um, taking people with me on that hike and engaging in conversations, pilgrimages are a great way to celebrate this Freedom Fast as one of the tools or things that we recommend in our guidebook.

Three Takeaways: Rediscover, Dialogue, Show Up

Grantley Martelly 42:09

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that because sometimes when we say show up, you know, people say, Well, what do you mean by show up? And but I I I like the conversation about, you know, ways that you can show up is having things in your community, talking to your neighbors, stay outside and talk to your neighbors, having community gatherings, like you said, walk a mile or do something together, take some person with you. And being present and listening to other people's stories is one of the things that I promote a lot on this podcast. Listen to other people's stories, we can learn from them. Yes. So showing up is not necessarily showing up for a meeting or for a protest. Those are things important too. Showing up at church is important or showing up at your PTA is important, but also showing up for each other. And it doesn't have to be a formally organized showing up. It could be just that conversation at the mailbox.

Jim Copple 43:03

Exactly. I'll tell you, Grantly, we're gonna probably recruit you into the Freedom Fast to be one of our mentors. You've got great experience in a lot of this, and uh we're uh voices like yours are important to our process and to our project.

Grantley Martelly 43:20

We have a tendency to make things too complicated.

Jim Copple 43:24

Yes. Right. Right.

Grantley Martelly 43:26

When I was trained in in uh quality and performance management on the principle was don't complicate things that should remain simple.

Jim Copple 43:35

Yes.

Grantley Martelly 43:36

Yes, keep it as simple as possible. You don't need you don't need an organization with flyers to talk to your neighbors. You just need to talk to your neighbor, right? The simplest form of it that we've learned.

Jim Copple 43:48

So, Jim, uh anything else that you would like us to talk about before we No, I appreciate this opportunity, and uh we hope we get a lot of people to sign up and uh get engaged. Uh there are a lot of people interested in what we're doing, and uh, I'm excited. I've done a lot of um travel and done involved and been involved in a lot of important projects, uh, but I think this is one of the most important things I've ever done. And uh I'm excited about getting people engaged.

Grantley Martelly 44:18

So I'm glad that you took the challenge to do it and that you stepped up and had the courage to do it and put it out there. And uh maybe this will begin a national tradition, international tradition. That people begin to follow. So thank you for coming with us today and sharing with us on Above the Noise. Thank you for being our guests. Remember to subscribe and leave us a rating. Ratings are very important to helping our podcast succeed in the podcast universe and helping it become known to other people. Email us your comments at above the noise24 at gmail.com. Above the noise24 at gmail.com. And follow us on Instagram and Facebook at AboveThenoise24. Thank you for listening and please share this episode with a friend.