Prayer: Most Human of All Human Acts — Henri Nouwen

It is the most human of all human acts, it is also easily perceived as the most superfluous and superstitious activity. Still, we have to keep speaking about prayer as we keep speaking about love, lovers, art, and artists. Because when we do not stay in touch with that centre of our spiritual life called prayer, we lose touch with all that grows from it. When we do not enter into that inner field of tension, where the movement from illusion to prayer takes place, our solitude and our hospitality easily lose their depth. And then, instead of being essential to our spiritual life, they become pious ornaments of a morally respectable existence. — Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life