To pray is not to use special language; it is the sound of a cry or a laugh rising from ordinary days. Formal or official words can often be lifeless. To pray we need to return like children to an elemental language of soul, to something close to song, to chant, to playground singing.
An early century desert monk once shared an image:
"When the door of the steam bath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says is good ..."
Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.