Looking for Stevie Wonder

Every year around the fourth of July Chicago has an event called "The Taste of Chicago". There is basically food and music. Usually I avoid it because I hate crowds (no, really I HATE crowds), but this year Stevie Wonder was playing. Stevie Wonder! For free! For that I would endure traffic and crowds.
My mother was visiting so she, my baby, and I loaded into the mini-van and headed for Chicago. The traffic and crowds were as expected, but we plowed our way through to the concert area. It took us about half an hour to walk three blocks, but we persevered. We were even early. Unfortunately, we were also at the wrong place. By the time we got to the right place the concert was in full swing and it was packed. Disappointing, yes, but I thought, we can still enjoy it.
So we set about to find someplace to enjoy the concert. All we could see of Stevie was the top of his head displayed on a big screen up front. That wasn't too bad, what was bad is that we couldn't hear him. The music was not loud enough and people were talking. Talking instead of listening to Stevie! Why, I thought, do people come to a concert and talk? If you want to talk, stay home or go to some other part of the taste. After a while we gave up and left. Faint traces of, "Don't you worry 'bout a thing . . ." teasing us as we walked away.
That Sunday I was at church. The music in my church is always loud enough, or more accurately, "Ouch! My ears are bleeding, please turn it down!" And I could see the people on stage clearly on our screens. The problem is, the music is not what I came to hear. The people on stage are not who I came to see. I came to hear God, to meet with Jesus. I found myself thinking about the Stevie Wonder concert and how frustrated I was that I couldn't hear him because of the other noises around. I felt the same frustrations as I stood in the church. I wanted everyone to just stop talking and singing and playing for just a little while so I could hear the one I came to hear.
Why have we become so afraid of silence? We can't even seem to endure ten minutes of no one talking or singing during worship. I think we are missing something by our constant need for noise. How can we expect people to grow and mature if we do not allow them time to learn how to hear God? Maybe once or twice a month we should do church like the early Quakers did and just sit still and be quiet until God moves.