Thanks for the sympathies
that you have shown!
Thanks for each kindly word,
each silent token,
That reaches me, when
seeming most alone.
Friends are around us, though
no word be spoken.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Silence is not merely negative -- a pause between words, a temporary cessation of speech -- but properly understood, it is highly positive: an attitude of attentive alertness, of vigilance, and above all, of listening.