From an interview with Terry Waite, British hostage negotiator in Beirut who was himself held hostage 1987-1991, talking about how he kept himself sane in captivity:

“...I’d been brought up as an Anglican...and had been brought up with the Book of Common Prayer. The language of that was very, very helpful. I had unconsciously memorised it as a choir boy. If I can just give you an example of what I mean from one of the great old collects of the prayer book:

“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night...

“That is very, very meaningful when you’re sitting in darkness. That collect not only has meaning but it also has poetry and rhythm. There is a relationship between identity, language and prayer; somehow they help you hold together at your centre.

“Some people may find this strange, but I never engaged in what is called extemporary prayer during that time. I felt that if I did I would begin to, sort of, go down down a one-way track, reveal my own psychological vulnerability and just get into the business of saying, ‘Oh God, get me out of here’—which isn’t prayer at all. That’s just like being a child. So by falling back on that which I knew, the Prayer Book and the balance of that, I was able to keep a bit more balance in my mind and also maintain some degree of inner balance.”

(Sheridan Voysey, Open House pp 7–8)