A Kingdom of Noise: A Screwtape Letter for the Media Age is worth the read and the thought.
A little snippet:
Good news! The latest commendations have arrived from the Council of the Pit. You impress the lower-downs, my zealous Wormwood. They have heard of your schemes on the Noise Proliferation Committee (NPC). Indeed, places of solitude and moments of silence grow ever more scarce in the Enemy's vast and vulgar dominion. Oh, what euphoria to see his insufferable creatures rush to fill the dead air with a cacophony of cell phones and muzac, leaf blowers and manipulated car exhaust pipes, 24-hour news and I-Pods. Those nauseating humans cannot escape their self-made dungeon of din!
My pride bubbles like brimstone, Wormwood.
It is down-wrong delicious that you are able to entice your assignments into believing that quiet and solitude are a waste of time, even harmful to their pursuits. We must be the demon in the whirlwind, invading their private space, cluttering their innermost being with commotion.
Make them feel empty without a Blackberry on their hip or a television blaring in the background. Tune their alarm clock to a raucous station with bombastic DJs. Call their cell phone on their way to work or during a meal. Put TV screens in banks and hotel lobbies, gas stations and airplanes - anywhere humans might have time to reflect. Offer deals to Walt Disney World and casinos, and make a weekend in the Catskills appear unexciting or at least unaffordable.
Over time the humans will grow unaware of the high-pitched ringing in their ears.
My own Mom sent me this in email and I LOVE IT. It rings true, haha, so to speak, in my parish (and my daily life sometimes, too). There is NO time allotted for silence during our Mass. And doesn't the Bible say God's in the whispers?? Drives me crazy. I'm sure the argument would be that Mass is our *community* time to worship out loud, and that if we want to meditate in silence, do it on our own time.... but I don't buy that.
I mean to point to the end of the essay, by the way, where the author/Devil talks about making sure there's no time for silence in the churches, either. :)