AWAKEN THE SLEEPING GIANT

The Importance of Prayer

Philip Burley

United Prayers Across America
A National Prayer Project to Awaken the Sleeping Giant

April 7, 2006

www.AwakenSleepingGiant.org
awksleepinggiant@gmail.com

Resuming Conference Calls—Monday, April 10, 2006

In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine
Dear Friends,

As we resume our public telephone conferencing program of prayer to Awaken the Sleeping Giant, it is my earnest hope that we have all been able to maintain the forward movement of our prayer during the past two weeks. To reflect an expansion of our effort, we have renamed the project:

United Prayers Across America
A National Prayer Project to Awaken the Sleeping Giant

In the coming weeks, our website will reflect this change. To encourage more people to pray with us, I have broadened the overall reality of what we are doing. In the near future, further steps—beyond this letter and restarting our conference calls—will be taken, and you will be kept informed of these steps.

To Continue and to be Inspired

There is no question that prayer for our country is needed, with all of the headlines and happenings locally, nationally, and globally, we are continuing our prayer project. Our country is not yet out of harm’s way, and even more prayers are needed, whether our prayers or those of others.

While the specific influence of the energies put forth in our Awaken the Sleeping Giant prayer may not be immediately known, we can each be certain of the value of the prayer by how it is changing us for the better. Rest assured, if such an effort and its resultant energy is affecting us, it is indeed affecting the external world as well.

I am sharing below excerpts from the writings of Larry Dossey, a well-known and widely-read present day practitioner and advocate of local and in-distance personal healing, so that we can be further inspired and more determined to pray to Awaken the Sleeping Giant:

...we rediscover the ancient realization that consciousness can free itself from the body and that it has the potential to act not just locally on one’s own body, ...but also nonlocally on distance things, events, and people.

…People everywhere are starved for meaning, purpose, and spiritual fulfillment in their lives. To lead healthy, full lives, we require a positive sense of meaning, just as we need food and water, for without meaning life withers. As we shall see, nonlocal mind is suffused with spiritual meaning and can help fill the inner void that has become such a painful feature of modern life. …Many studies reveal that healing can be achieved at a distance by directing loving and compassionate thoughts, intentions and prayers to others. …These findings reveal the ability of some part of our mind or consciousness to escape its confinement to the brain and body and to act anywhere, regardless of distance...

Distance healing does not mean just a long way off, but rather, infinite in space and time. If something is nonlocal it is unlimited. Recently modern scientists have discovered that nonlocal events are not fantasy but are part of the fabric of the universe. This also means that the strength of the healing does not “fall off” with increasing distance. Nonlocal healing does not fizzle as distance increases. It doesn’t matter if a person prays for someone else from far away or from the bedside. What matters is the prayer. In quantum, a mental intention does not arrive at a destination, because there is no distance to cover and therefore no requirement for travel time.¹

To inspire us further to keep on keeping on with United Prayers Across America, I have also included an excerpt from the findings of practitioners of Transcendental Meditation. The heading for the article reads:

1 June 99

A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Social Indicators Research reports on one of the most dramatic sociological experiments ever undertaken. Researchers predicted in advance that the calming influence of group meditation practice could reduce violent crime by over 20 percent in Washington, D.C., during an 8-week period in the summer of 1993.

In fact, the findings later showed that the rate of violent crime—which included assaults, murders, and rapes—decreased by 23 percent during the June 7 to July 30 experimental period. The odds of this result occurring by chance are less than 2 in 1 billion. Rigorous statistical analyses ruled out an extensive list of alternative explanations, according to John Hagelin, lead author of the study and director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.²

¹Reinventing Medicine: Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing, Copyright 1999 by Larry Dossey, M.D., HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 Website Link
²http://www.alltm.org/pages/crime-arrested.html

Points of Change and Emphasis

As we continue, I have made some significant changes in our approach, including:

1. Shared Leadership: While I will continue to guide this project, for the sake of including the valuable and unique energies of others, I have decided to ask some of you to participate by leading our weekly telephone conference calls. I want to emphasize national participation in the shared theme of Awaken the Sleeping Giant, to actualize a broader base and a national spirit for this greatly needed prayer for America.
   
   Already we have participants calling in each week from the four corners of America. Why not share our national experience and spirit by having individuals from around our great land take part in leading? Beginning this week, I have inaugurated this ideal by asking a guest host to lead. I will be there to welcome you, but the host will lead the way into the evening’s content and our newly revised and shortened Awaken the Sleeping Giant prayer. In the coming weeks others will do the same.
2. Your Emails: If you have information that you think I need to know or that might be valuable for others, and if you have personal questions, you can still send emails. Because it has become humanly impossible for me to field answers to every email, I will incorporate the help of others to respond when possible. All emails are kept strictly confidential by using only the first name in our publications, but if you do not mind your full name being used, please say so in your emails. The use of your full name gives greater authenticity and more specifically personalizes your words. Visitors to the site can see we are real people with first and last names, and this may prompt them to be more inclined to join us.
3. The Prayer: With permission from “Above,” the prayer has been shortened to conserve time and energy, but please feel free to add to it for your own personal purposes. For example, while we will no longer be including all the city names, if you would like to incorporate them or others, please do so. As you read the new prayer at the end of this letter, you will easily see the changes that have been made. This is the version that will be used from now on in daily prayer as well as in our weekly conference call.
4. Change of Day and Time for the Conference Call: The conference call has been moved to Monday nights at 6 PM Mountain Standard Time (MST). It will cease to be on two nights. To maintain the two-night schedule is not feasible in the long run, which I am sure you can readily understand. Because of the time change, I have moved the call to 6 PM MST to allow those in the East to be able to participate at 9 PM instead of 10 PM since the East Coast is now three hours ahead of MST.

I have changed the conference calling company:

1. There are no charges for this company other than the normal calling charge for long distance.
2. While limited to 96 people per call, at present that is not a problem.
3. When you join the conference call, a tone will be sounded when you "enter the conference room."
4. Unlike our previous service, participants can be heard both when they come on and if there is a need to be heard by everyone else on the call.
5. Each caller has a choice to mute themselves or not, and the host can also mute everyone.
6. The new company provides free recording services for the evening’s conference, and you can call in 24/7 to hear the conference call of the week. It is not permanently archived but is replaced with each week’s recorded call. (We may archive the weekly calls if proper arrangements can be made.) If you miss a weekly call, you can call in any time up to the next week’s call and hear the conference call contents. The number for calling in is listed at the end of this document.

I am pleased to have found this new service, through Martha in Texas and her teacher Cathy Acker who uses this company for her conference calls. Thank you, Cathy and Martha!

United Prayers Across America
A National Prayer Project to Awaken the Sleeping Giant

Conference Call Times:

9:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

8:00 PM Central Daylight Time

7:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time

6:00 PM Mountain Standard Time (AZ)

6:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Conference Dial-in Number: 712-580-6300
Participant Access Code: 906188 plus # sign

Each call will be recorded and can be heard 24/7 until the next call is recorded:

Playback Number: 641-985-5000

Access Code: 906188 plus # sign
[numbers no longer active]

AWAKEN THE SLEEPING GIANT PRAYER
(Revised April 10, 2006)

Mission Statement

I understand that Jesus has asked for special prayer for America. To comply with his request, I have volunteered to be a prayer channel—ideally once a day—for God to radiate through me unconditional, loving, protective, healing energies to all Americans. I am not responsible for the outcome of my prayers. In faith and trust, I leave the outcome to God.

Meditation for Personal Healing and Setting Intention

In the spirit of United Prayers Across America, let each of us, in silent meditation, prepare ourselves and set our intention for participating in praying the Awaken the Sleeping Giant prayer. (Conference Leader gives participants one minute to prepare themselves.)

Praying the Prayer to Awaken the Sleeping Giant

1. Dear Heavenly Father, I visualize before me the city of Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital. I pray for this city as representative of all cities and towns of America. In my prayer, I see the radiation of your holy and eternal spiritual white light spanning above and over the whole city.
   
   From your all-encompassing, supernatural, white light, I see the raining down of countless numbers of droplets of unconditional love upon all the people; leaders and followers alike.
   
   For a few moments, I will continue to visualize these droplets of unconditional love raining down upon our nation’s capital, where the drops may awaken, protect, and bless all of the people of Washington, D.C., and all cities and towns in America. (One minute pause for visualizing)
2. And now, Father, I turn toward our nation. In my prayer, I see the radiation of your holy and eternal, spiritual white light spanning above and over the whole nation of the United States of America, from East to West, from North to South, including Alaska and Hawaii. And from your light I see the raining down of droplets of love that may awaken, protect, and bless all of the people of America. (One minute pause for visualizing)
3. Father, I now center my prayer upon the world. In my prayer, I see the radiation of your holy and eternal, spiritual white light spanning above and over the whole world. And from this Light I see the raining down of droplets of love that may awaken, protect, and bless all of the people in every nation of the world to bring about universal harmony, unity, and lasting peace among all nations. (One minute pause for visualizing)
4. Heavenly Father, I affirm that my prayer has been heard, that your love, combined with what I have given, awakens, protects and blesses me, all of the people of America and the whole world. I know that your will is being done with all of my prayers according to your greater wisdom.

I also affirm that my prayers, asked for by Jesus, are making a difference in me, our nation, and in the whole world. All this I pray in the Universal Christ Spirit. Amen.

Closing Comments

Let us all keep the promise and remember to remember to attend to our sacred prayer duty, first for ourselves and secondly for others and our country, the United States of America.

God bless and good night.