I have pondered the contemplative life, wondering how it could be useful or applicable to one in the twenty-first century. Might it be useful-even in this age of high-speed electronics, of smart phones, and Wikipedia-or should it be consigned to the annals of history to days when life was apparently simpler and quotidian challenges easier to resolve? Reduced to its essentials, the life of a recluse or eremite might, after all, prove to be instructive, freeing, and liberating. It might still be generally relevant.