Prayer is an opening of the heart, an alignment with the beauty of the universe. We pray to open our hearts to spiritual power, the ability to sparkle, to shine warmth and light. We open to both the power of clear sight and the power of reflection, to actions that are thoughtful and kind.
As long as the soul is not still, there can be no vision. But when stillness has brought us into the presence of God, then another sort of silence, much more absolute, intervenes: the silence of a soul that is not only still and recollected, but which is overawed in an act of worship by God's presence.