good goodbyes

Taken from someone else's chat...I hope this is legal.

Ciao, au revoir, adieu, ahnyeongheegaseyo...I'm pretty certain every language has a way to signal and mark the parting of ways.

Welcome to the grey area of electronic communications.

Not to make this post about netiquette, but I've been adjusting recently to the fact that most of the people I gchat with (and I don't usually gchat) don't formally end the chat. That's actually somewhat of a relief since I've never been good at that anyway (whether it's on the phone or over the internet, "alright, talk to you later" just doesn't seem as sincere as I'd like it to be). Still, it strikes me as kind of odd that saying "goodbye" could be becoming an option rather than an expectation in daily life. 

(Click on post title to read entire post)

I bring up this phenomenon not to change people's chatting habits, but because it got me thinking about the place that "parting traditions" (saying goodbye in some cultures, bowing in others) have in human relationships. At one level they may just seem like basically empty social expectations: Do all who say "goodbye" really intend its original meaning (God be with ye)? No, most of the time our parting traditions are done without much thought.

If we go a little bit deeper, however, an argument could be made for assigning nearly as much importance to parting traditions as we do to human relationships themselves. What is a relationship made up of after all? Yes, it's definitely more than what we say to one another. There are the things we do for and with one another. There are also the many thoughts we have about one another. But certainly our relationships are no less than what we say to one another.

Communication doesn't always happen through verbal language. Our actions and even our postures communicate so much. But much communication does happen through the words that bridge us to one another, and our parting traditions have a role in that. Paul writes in Ephesians, "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity...Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:15-19). In other words, our speech does matter. Every word counts.

Every time we meet another human being, we are given an amazing opportunity to love them with our actions, our thoughts, and our words. I encourage you to think about the words you choose today.

*random survey: how do you like to say goodbye? is there a specific reason you chose that phrase/tradition?*