When We Say Goodbye

Ever wondered why there’s an ‘e’ at the end of the word goodbye?  What’s a “bye” anyhow? And how can a “bye” be “good”?

Well it didn’t make any sense to me either, so I looked into it. Sources I’ve found consistently report that the word goodbye is a contraction for the full phrase, “God be with ye.” The ‘e’ at the end of bye isn’t an add-on to the preposition by, it’s the second letter of the whole word ye. Which most people don’t say much anymore. Except in Christmas carols or when acting in plays by Shakespeare.

So, when we say goodbye to one another, we’re actually saying something with religious overtones, even if in common usage these meanings have been effaced by time and by a general human tendency toward forgetfulness. The French adieu and the Spanish adios and vaya con dios are similar. All these customary “goodbyes” were originally intended as blessings.

And it may help to consider the perils people routinely endured, with lives in former times often being shorter, more precarious, and more subject to violence. We don’t need hard times to bless one another on our ways, but especially when times do get difficult, it might make more sense to encourage one another on parting to access a higher power or a protective influence from which we can draw a sense of safety.

Of course, many people who hear the word ‘God’ immediately think of organized religion, which tends to be either embraced, rejected, or treated with casual indifference. I’m also mindful of the fact that discovering that we are constantly and unwittingly invoking a deity might be difficult to hear for those who have suffered what might be called spiritual or religious abuse and trauma. All I can say in response to that is, “Yes. I understand this is your experience.”

And then, at the conclusion of my interactions with those affected by these things, I might say goodbye. Knowing, of course, what that historically means.

Because, my experience is different. Personally, I like the idea of farewells that invoke in people a sense of being cared for, of inner safety, of a loving presence that infuses all existence. I feel it’s healthy. I think it’s helpful. I see the possibility that walking in that consciousness may even help to actualize these very possibilities, while habitually walking in fear and defensiveness tends to do the opposite.

News flash: In many respects we actually live in a much safer age than in previous eras. For example, on aggregate, violent crime has fallen steeply in the United States for the last 30 years, such that the most recently reported violent crime rates per 100,000 are about half that of 1991. Check out this graph. If you’re surprised by this trend line, that’s worth noticing.

In the mid-1990s, I read a book called Malign Neglect: Race, Crime and Punishment in America after hearing author Michael Tonry interviewed on the radio by, I believe it was Teri Gross. Yes, here it is. Published by the Oxford University Press, the book is a deep dive into the devastating effects of the “law and order” craze then sweeping through US politics. One of the tidbits I still recall from the book is that during the initial stages of what turned out to be a decades-long downturn in violent crime, crime reporting went up, and by a wide margin. A 500% increase over a five-year period, if memory serves. Hmmmm. Interesting, methinks.

Sounds a bit like reporting was not tracking reality. You might call that distortion. And dis-tortion, in my observation, is often a setup for ex-tortion. The common root of the words means “to twist” and the related word torsion refers to twisting force.

Well I guess, as they say in the newspaper business, “If it bleeds, it leads.” And from time immemorial, that sells papers, back anyhow when papers were more of a thing. But personally I do not think money is the prime motivator of those who control the media. These organizations do want to make money, yes, but my read on the patterns I have seen is that the various entities who control the corporate media mainly see an opportunity to self-fund the promulgation of belief structures by which they will maintain their social advantages and advance agendas toward that end.

So, sure, they can sell their papers, or in modern parlance, sell “click-throughs,” user data, metadata and browsing habits, audience share, viewership, link shares, site visits or however they want to quantify our trained eyeballs. These entities can sell us that way. And they do.

But my point is, if the net effect of consistently consuming their product is anxiety and distrust or even disdain for our fellow humans, I have to ask: to whose benefit is that? Because clearly, if anxiety and projection are the consistent result of our consumption of their products, at a minimum this have been deemed to be an acceptable result. I suspect, however, that these are actually desired results, since they are the consistent outcomes. And please understand, I’m not saying that there aren’t things going on worth knowing about. But mostly it seems to me that such programming is a way of first fomenting our fears and then focusing our collective anxieties upon certain pre-determined points of coalescence. I invite you to ask honestly: Are these entities inviting me to inhabit my best self?

So what’s all this got to do with “God be with ye”? Well, it’s just a different way to walk through life. Maybe to avoid communication issues we could change the language: “Go in peace” is roughly synonymous to my understanding. Use it. “Walk in light” works also.

Please don’t go that other way, though.