This article provides a theological framework whereby the practices of silent contemplative prayer and tongues speech can be understood as mutually conditioning prayer practices that form the one who prays to perceive both beauty and the beautiful. It does so through an examination of the implicit metaphysical assumptions of the respective practices. The first section examines the implicit relationship between contemplative prayer and divine impassibility. The second section examines the relationship between glossolalia and divine relationality. The third section presents the practices of contemplation and glossolalia as mutually informative in dialogue with Gregory Palamas’ distinction between divine essence and energies. The article will therefore conclude that a comprehensive prayer practice that unites the experiences of impassibility and relationality can overcome the aesthetic divide between the mystical and the artistic by uniting the one who prays with a God who is both transcendent and relational.

这篇文章提供了一个神学框架，借此可以将默观祈祷和方言演讲的实践理解为相互制约的祈祷实践，形成祈祷以感知美和美的人。它通过检查各自实践的隐含形而上学假设来实现。第一部分考察了默观祈祷与神圣不可逾越之间的隐含关系。第二部分考察了口语和神圣关系之间的关系。第三部分在与格雷戈里·帕拉马斯 (Gregory Palamas) 对神圣本质和能量之间的区别进行对话时，将沉思和口语的实践呈现为相互提供信息。