“Prayer is our nearest approach to absolute action; it means the closest association of which any soul is at any time capable with the living and everywhere present God who is the true initiator of all that we really do.  Progress in it is really a surrender of the conditioned creature to that unconditioned yet richly personal Reality, who is the only source, teacher, and object of prayer.  Its whole wonder and mystery abide in this: that here, our tiny souls are being invited and incited to communion with God, the Eternal Spirit of the Universe.”

–Evelyn Underhill, Man and the Supernatural, p.196