Both contemplation and action are necessary to human flourishing. The Middle Ages prized contemplation, which is why medieval societies, including products of their technological knowledge, were ordered to God. The icon, thought to be a symbolic window into divine reality, is an apt symbol of that age. Contemplation is alien to the modern mode of life. The iPhone, a luminous portal promising to show us the world, but really a mirror of the world inside our heads, is the icon of our own age.
