The Key

About 6 months ago I was running in the woods, as usual.  I had been doing this for a long time with my car key in my pocket.  Then I started to consider if I lost it, I'd have to pay for a new chipped key.  So I had a door key made for just a few dollars.  I had this in my pocket on this day.

I ran deep into the swamp and found a comfortable spot where I stopped for a rest, sitting on the ground.  After a few minutes I got up and made my way out of the swamp and back to the trail.  Keep in mind, that running in the swamp is not like running on a road.  You can watch one of my videos to see exactly what it looks like, but there is a lot of shifting foot work, jumping, vaulting, crawling, etc.  So I carry as few things as possible and check for them frequently.

Eventually, I reached the last big tree of my course where I usually jump from.  Upon rolling to my feet, I touched my pocket to see if the key was still there and it wasn't.  My spirits sank and I looked around on the ground.  I looked carefully, then swept leaves.  Then widened the search.  Then looked again.  It was not there.  Had I checked for it at all the other usual points?  I must not have!  So I turned back to retrace my steps.  Hopefully it was not lost off trail.

I was nearly done with the run, so I had about 7km to retrace and it was getting later in the day.  I didn't find it at any of the points on the trail, so I sighed as I realized it must have been off trail.  I knew where I had left the trail, but following the exact path would be nearly impossible.  So I prayed again for help to find it, like I had found my wedding ring years before.

In that story, my ring had slipped off in cold blackwater while diving for work.  Blackwater, if you don't know, is extremely tannic such that you literally can't see your hand in front of your face.  I watched the silver flash flip downward into obscurity.  I tried to dive for it, but couldn't see, so I gave it for lost.  My coworker insisted we try to find it.  So we left and returned nearly an hour later after haggling with a dive shop to loan us a powerful light.  With the light secured against mishap with a rope, I tried again.  Even that tremendously bright light only illuminated a narrow beam in the eternal black 3 meters down.  But I scanned the leaf litter slowly and miraculously saw a glint.  I carefully scooped it up like Smeagol finding the One and surfaced with it clenched in my outstretched hand!  The chances of finding it after such a length of time in such dark water with such a current were minuscule.  So if God could allow that, he could help me again.

But quickly I lost the trail.  Was it this log or that log? If this one, was it here or three feet to the left?  There was no key.  Soon I lost all sense of my path, so I just went back to the point I'd left the trail.

I continued the search in hopes that I might have lost it on the early part of the run, but that didn't seem likely.  I was pretty sure I'd had it when I left the trail the first time.  It must have either bounced out of my pocket, or fallen out when I sat down.  That seemed most likely.  I didn't usually do that, so I might not have checked my pocket when I got up.

The next challenge was getting home.  This place is not so much of a park, as a dirt lot with access to public land.  There's no phone.  No houses near.  It was a weekday evening, so hopefully I'd run into someone in the parking lot who could call my wife.  If not, I'd have to run across the road and 4 km down the drive on the other side to get to a ranger station.

Providentially, I spotted a couple out for an evening jog.  I saw that they had phones strapped on for training.  I explained my situation and asked if I could borrow one.  They obliged and my wife started to come with the spare key.

I thanked the people and resumed my search now having run double what I normally do.  A couple others saw my searching demeanor and asked if I was ok.  I told them and they promised to put the key in the trail box if they found it.  But I knew they wouldn't.

After getting out I had immediately had another door key made, which I now tie around my waist on a strong cord, tuck in my pants, and still check constantly.  But it's not in my nature to forget something like this. So even though I had given up all hope of finding it, I continued to check the trail box for several weeks after.  I even tried to go retrace the path a couple times and see if I could miraculously luck up on the spot and find the key.  Of course I didn't find it.

So then I was running again this week and thought of the key once or so.  I knew it was still out there somewhere in the vast swamp.  Perhaps the trophy of a crow or raccoon or other animal that likes shiny objects.  Wouldn't it be weird if I saw it like that, I thought?  Stuck in nest, or hanging from a bird's beak as it flew past.  Unlikely, but not at all impossible.

Toward the end of my run as I was getting fatigued, I climbed the last tree with the perfect perch from which to leap off.  I jumped and rolled over my left shoulder, then reclimbed to roll over my weaker right.  I have recently had to change trajectory because I've worn out the landing spot and roots were painful.  I overextended the jump a bit and came out of the roll a little awkward, further into the trail than usual.  As momentum carried me to my feet, I looked between them, and square in the middle of my black shoes, pointing down the trail was a silver key with black end.  I instantly thought my cord had come untied, but found the key secure in its place.  I grabbed the key on the ground in astonishment.  It looked just like mine.  It couldn't be!

I pulled the corded key out of my waistband and compared them.  No way!  It was MY LOST KEY!  How?  I looked everywhere here!  How could it have lasted six months right in the trail!  Had someone picked it up by chance and dropped it here?  What are the chances of that?  Had an animal truly returned it to me?  Most likely, I had dropped it in this place.  But how had it remained through driving summer rains, rapid bicycles, and countless feet, only to pop to the surface right between the feet of the very one person who had lost it?

Like any occurrence of this type, the skeptic (and I am usually with you), will ascribe it to chance.  The sap will call it a miracle.  I don't go that far.  I ascribe it to the everyday sort of mysteries in which the unseen intrudes into our mundane worlds.  The Majik, to coin a word.

These small intrusions of a greater reality are, for me, the most exciting thing.  Small love notes from a Father who says, "I am here." in a personal way that most others will not even perceive or understand.  It is a private message, like a note scribbled on a napkin in a lunchbox, meant only for my eyes, and bolstering my trust and love.

It also illustrates another principle.  That he is most truly God of the lost.  There is nothing so small that it falls from his attention, and it returns in the most unlooked for ways.  If he can save something as trivial as my lost key and bring it back to me so perfectly, so precisely, after I had given up as an irksome memory of my inattention, I can never assume anything is truly lost.  Though I may seem irrevocably far from it in space, time, or understanding it is not gone from him.  As Steve Taylor so eloquently put it, "Misfits lost in the dryer take heart; God's got a place for us in Sock Heaven."

 I think this is, well...key.

Colors

Every once in a while the media frenzy of the day gets to me in a way that I want to add my two cents to the conversation.  So that's what this is.  But I will start by telling you what this is not.

This is not the extent of my opinions.  You should never assume you have me pegged based on what I say here.  This is not an assessment of current events.  I am not commenting on something I have no direct knowledge of.  That would be ignorant foolishness.

So I want to talk about how this does affect me: colors.  Namely skin colors as a means of defining ourselves and others.  Has anyone else noticed that this whole controversy has tacitly accepted the distinction of "black" and "white"?  It's a given in the argument.  It's an unstated assumption.  The two groups exist and are different.

I emphatically disagree with that.  I am calling the assumptions into question. 

Let alone the stupid nature of the terms which don't accurately reflect reality.  I know very few people who are actually white or black in color.  We're all a greater or lesser degree of tanish brown.  Where do we draw the line?  I know "blacks" who are paler than me and "whites" who are far darker.  And I don't mean people of one ethnicity who identify culturally with the other.  I mean actual African genomed people with pale skin and the reverse.

But even accepting the words as cultural markers, they are nothing more than something we assume.  We all know examples of the "crossovers" who identify more with the culture of the color they are not.  But then there's those in the middle, of various ethnic descents, etc. who don't fit in either.  For many of us, the cultural lines are not drawn based on color, they just aren't.  There's multiple colors in the same culture.  So it's not nearly as fixed as some would have it seem.

But to go a step further in denouncing the differences, I know many people who identify themselves as distinctly "white" even wearing the racist history as a badge of honor, and many "blacks" who are all chip-on-their-shoulder types.  But you know what?  They eat similar foods.  They view things in similar ways, only with a color swap. Soul Food and Southern Cooking are EXACTLY THE SAME THING!  The only difference is the cut of meat...and sometimes not even that.  A poor ignorant "white" says the same things about "blacks" that a poor ignorant "black" is saying about "whites".  I've experienced this first hand, each oblivious that they were saying the same things about the other group.  But they're sooo different!  It's ridiculous!

People are people.  We have different cultures.  We have different styles and different ways of talking.  But at the root, we all care about the same things.  We are not that different.  To draw a line based on some hazy definition of skin color is to establish a lie around which many evils spring up...as we're seeing right now.

So I refuse to accept the assumption.  I grant that many people do.  But that is the only reason it exists.  And every time we tacitly accept it, we reinforce it.  But every time we refuse it, we tear a bit of that lie down.  So I'm telling you that for me and my house, we will not, do not, use color as an identifying characteristic.  Not even culturally.

And I'm asking you to do the same.  Strike it from your vocabulary!  It will be stilted until you get used to it.  People around you will still use it.  But YOU don't.  Don't let your kids.  Don't fill it out on forms.  Erase it.  Insist on it.  Play dumb when people try to use it with you. "White?  That girl in the white shirt?  Oh you mean the guy with lighter skin up there? Is that who you mean?"  Decide on it right now.  And if you feel those tendencies of your past way of thinking creeping in, reject them and consciously look on people with fresh eyes.  This is the only way it will go away.  Take the power out from under it.  You'll have to think about people in new ways.  You'll find it gets easier with time until you truly don't see the distinctions you once did.

Don't perpetuate this evil.  End it now as far as your sphere of influence reaches.

Stolen or Lost

As often happens, I'm jumping off from something someone said who may actually read this.  If that's you, or you know who it is, please note that I am being careful to divorce the statement from the person.  As I've stated before, I'm dealing with ideas in this blog, which are the things the internet is made of, and not attacking people.  Truthfully, the statement is nothing more than a point of departure that got me thinking.  So I'm thankful for that and move on in the spirit of healthy salonic discussion and the "you" I address below is not that person, but a strawman I've set up for express purposes of tearing down. (that's actually what 'strawman' means, though people rarely use it correctly.)

So what is this now much anticipated statement?  That God wants his church back.  Yeah, that's it.  If you're let down, you obviously don't read this blog much.  At first, my reaction was "Who took it?"  Who could take it?  Is That-Than-Which-Nothing-Greater-Can-Be-Conceived so easily thwarted that anything which is His could be taken, stolen, or lost?

Now, of course, I get the statement.  I know how it was intended: as a clever way to describe a truth.  So no big deal.  But it lingered.  So as I pondered why, I came to see this as a symptom of the very kind of thinking which has led to the problem being addressed in the first place.  That problem is a lack of true relationship, true following of God's Reality.  See, I know several people right now who are on this journey away from the institutionalized church.  They call it different names, but this has been a grand revelation for them.  I'm happy for them and supportive.  I really am, because I am quite frankly tired of being out here in the woods by myself...both metaphorically and physically.  But more importantly, as one who came through this path myself, I get it.  I know the jaw dropping joy and boundless, sometimes sickening freedom of it.  Come on and catch up so we can move on together!  I hope these thoughts help.

But it's important to recognize that this is not a new thing.  It's not a "move of God."  Honestly, you gotta drop that kind of vocabulary altogether, bro.  God doesn't move like that.  Isn't that what you're waking up to?  His work hasn't been constrained to the various human institutions that come and go.  Sure he's moved through them, but not because of any thing they were.  Not because of anything they 'got right'.  To say so is just a deeper layer of the Pharisaical doctrines that Jesus was so against.  They'd taken the truth and twisted it to their own purposes.  Blind guides.

No God only moves one way.  It's the same way he always moves.  It's the way that Jesus came to show us, and the reason so few in his generation got it.  What were they expecting?  A hero.  A Warrior King.  A Righteous Ruler to wield true Divine Authority and set right all that was wrong.  They got this from their scriptures, just like we get our fallacies.

But what was Jesus?  Not that!  He said over and over, the Kingdom of God is not what men think.  It's within.  It's spiritual.  It's unseen.  He didn't overthrow society, he stepped out of it while staying right in it.  He crossed planes and walked right by those who thought they had it figured out.  The ruler who failed; that's him on the surface.  Just another radical who died.

You see where I'm going with this?  But what he did was change people on the inside.  He made them different.  He healed what was broken at the deepest levels.  I'll say it again, God only moves one way.  And that way is the way he's always moved: in the hearts of each individual person.  In those deep places where our own internal eye can barely see.  That's where he does his work.

Everything that occurs on the physical level is just a manifestation of this change.  A projection of a mutlidimensional existence into 3 dimensions.  It all comes from that.  On our own, we can't keep from getting the cart first.

So, remember that while this may be new to you, and the greatest thing ever.  It is...to you.  But you aren't the first, not even the early generation, man.  We had these same 'movements' in the mid '90's.  Right down to the house churches and all, bro.  I'm not saying their bad.  Walk your walk out.  You can't be expected anywhere on the path but where you are.  But realize things are just well in God's Kingdom.  They've never been shaken by winds of change in the world.  No one can take God's church, man.  He can't lose it either.  What was lost is us.  What's coming back is you.  What he's changing is your mind, not the world.  you thought you knew how it worked, but you've learned better now.

Read more old books.  Rome had it.  18th century France had it.  19th century England had it.  Early 20th century Europe had it.  Same abuses, same institutions painted in the fashions of the day.  And the same people realizing what's real and what isn't.  The same people awakening to what you are feeling now.

I know it's tough to shed old habits, and you'll probably get it wrong for many more years.  I'm just a little further down the path myself, so I'll be a different person soon too.  But one thing I can see from my view of the bend that you haven't gotten to yet is the lack of the preachy interaction.  Man, everything you learn isn't a revelation for everyone else.  Heed it.  Share it for sure.  But know, you aren't always gonna be at the head of the charge.  In truth, you never really were.  You just thought so, bro.

Now, jog on up here and let's go further up and further in together!

Fall where they may

Last entry,  I was struggling with the idea of evangelism.  I figured I needed study to settle my head.  So I took action.  I talked to a trusted friend who counsels me on lots of things.  He told me that he agrees with my approach, but he's also taken flac for it.  But he also told me he's seen others who took the more direct approach.  The proof is in the results...or the fruit, to use the Biblical analogy.

He also reminded me that there are different gifts, and though some groups try to cite the Great Commission as the bottom line of Christianity, it isn't necessarily that way.  Certainly we all have some level of responsibility to share our faith, but that there is a specific gift mentioned for Evangelism.  This reminded me of the discussion about various parts of one body.  How we are built to function as complementary parts, not all the same parts.  So in my mind, this necessarily disproves the interpretation that the Great Commission is the prime directive for every Christian.

Then I also talked to a friend who shares my faith but from a different part of the house.  He came at it from a different denomination, and then switched to one yet further down the hall from the one I came from.  So he helped me understand how those groups interpret the parts of the Bible that I was struggling with.

Then I reread a book (So you Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore) that had first gave me confidence to fully step out of the room I had been raised in.  I had poked my head out and looked up and down the hall of the wide house of Christian views, even looked int the windows of some other rooms.  But this book convinced me I needed to walk out of the one I was in.  I picked up several things I hadn't noticed before and reaffirmed the decision.  This served to help cut a few of the subtler cords that I hadn't fully broken yet.

And from there, I looked up one of the authors and found a podcast (The Jesus Lens) on interpreting the Bible as a chronicle of redemptive flow through time. The story of God's pursuit and salvation of humanity that culminated in Jesus, but continues through to this day and will progressively flow on to the end of time.  It was extremely enlightening to walk through every book this way.  I don't want to provide a cursory summary that will let a reader feel they got the idea and don't need to do the study themselves, so suffice to say this approach resolves many of the contradictory elements such as the nature of God in the Old Testament vs the New and the discrepancies in tone and approach of the New Testament writers themselves, which I mentioned as an issue last time.  I've heard many explanations for these problems, but this one is the best and most unified, to me.  So check it out if you're interested.

By this point, I was feeling more confident, so I even went through and looked up every verse that talks about the Word of God or Word of the Lord.  Actually, I looked up every instance of the word 'word'.  It's over 400 verses.  But I noticed two things:  they never refer to the written word, the scriptures, or the Bible itself.  Honestly, they couldn't refer to the Bible because it wasn't compiled until like 300 years after the last books were written.  But it never even refers to the Hebrew Law or Prophets.  These are always called out as writings.  The Word of God always refers to a live message or a person...seriously a person.  In some cases it says the Word of the Lord came to someone and said... and then the person replies.  So there's a conversation between entities here.  This is consistent with what John writes about the Word becoming flesh.

So I looked up the Hebrew and Greek words used.  'Dabar' in Hebrew and 'logos' is Greek.  They both refer to the written word only by extension.  The real meaning is the content.  They mean an issuance of information, a revelation in the strict sense.  So this just blew my head apart!  My whole life I'd been taught that the Bible was the Word of God.  Even as a toddler we'd sung songs about it.  But it's totally untrue!

In my excitement, I posted this on Facebook, which of course brought a little controversy.  But surprisingly, many people were not shocked.  So, I felt like Shinji Ikari emerging from his Instrumentality.  When it finally clicks, he finds himself standing amongst a host of people, who have also arrived there, clapping and congratulating him.

So now, I don't claim to have a better interpretation.  I truly feel confident in saying I know to be true what I already felt to be true.  And the burden of getting the right system down has been lifted.  I'm sure I don't have it totally right, but I have taken another giant step in learning to LIVE (alive, living) relationship with God.  And I am more comfortable with how to best deal with others at various points on the same road.

Because we ARE all on the same road.  Know it or not.  Believe it or not.  And I can now show you how the Bible demonstrates this.  And if I'm wrong, that's ok.  You can't convince me until my time is ripe, and I can't convince you until yours is.  So it's best to leave that job to the one who is capable of fixing us both.  Will people abuse this freedom, misinterpret what I'm saying?  Absolutely!  They already are, and have (I'm not the first to arrive here).  But potential for abuse doesn't mean we alter, negate, or hide the truth...as if we really could anyway.

Toss up

So, here's a question I wrestle with.  What exactly is the good news?  I've blogged it before and I still believe that.  But the crux of it this time is more about how that should be walked out.  I grew up steeped in Evengelicalism.  I'm still not too far away from it, since we tend to orbit around the gravitational centers of our upbringing.  Though I feel more like a comet than an inner planet these days.

My struggle is this:  Evangelicals take the very plain text of Paul and others about the Gospel, or good news, which simply says that Christ died and rose again, and then overlay their interpretation of what that means.  The meaning they ascribe is something of the substitutiary atonement thing that this coming and rising atoned for sins and now people can be right with God.  It's all in the Bible.  I've read it all.  I know the theology.  The thing is, it never sits that well as they spin it.

I don't disbelieve it, but I'm not sure they (we, I guess) have it right exactly.  I see a disconnect in the things Paul says and does and the things Jesus says.  I see differences in the things the Apostles say...Peter from Paul, James from both of them.  Again, I know the theology to reconcile them, but I'm not sure it's right.  It never sits well.  Never resonates true in my deep parts.

I'm not even sure how to articulate it.  So I'll ramble.  (This has the makings of a long post, so fair warning.)  Jesus says believe on him, follow him, keep his commandments.  Got it.  But his actions and words are all about doing right, faith in God, forgiveness.  It's a topside down, knife through paper, sort of worldview that rocks the people of his day.  He lifts up prostitutes and adulterers and speaks to people's hearts.  His sermons have a more universal appeal.  He harangues the self-righteous and opens arms wide to heal, meet needs, etc.  It's a big love.  He never asks them to get in line with some theological system.

But then we get into Acts and the Epistles and we get this charge out and argue, win converts, lose your life defending the truth sort of thing.  It's far more political in a sense...or am I missing something?  Maybe I just need to do an in-depth study of some parts to get a better handle on it.  But it seems to me, either these guys are heading in a different direction (though it could be a direction they were sent, as some argue that Jesus' work is different from ours). 

Or we've missed the point of the message the early evangelists preached.  I've heard this approach too.  That we're piecing together a system out of one side of several  conversations addressing discreet issues.

So is it valid to think that Jesus' approach is what the Apostles were using?  In some cases, clearly not.  They were preaching out systematic theology.  Most of Romans is this and it accounts for most of what we call Christianity today.

So when it comes down to it, here's the rub.  I have gone out and "witnessed".  I've used the tracts.  I've used the wordless book and beads.  I've worked the tents at fairs.  And all of it was uncomfortable and hollow.  I felt like it was doing little and I just wanted to stop.  So am I so lost inside that my old nature has that much sway?  If so, I can't change it.  No fake it till you make it for me.  That's living a lie and I've done that too.  I have no choice but to wait until that is fixed within me, despite what the "get out there" people are saying.

But I am totally comfortable with people knowing what I believe.  I explain it, allude to it, talk about it in an easy natural sort of way.  I'll explain theology to people who have an interest.  Listen to people's problems, meet needs (oh this is another peeve I'll get to in a minute), pray for people.  But I don't want to whack them over the head with my beliefs.  I'm not going up to people and cold-cocking them with, "Hey dude, you know what the Bible says about following Jesus?  Let me tell ya!"  I'm not walking the streets looking for people to stop and witness to or pray for or debate with.  Heck, I'll pray for them.  I'll jump right in and meet the need as soon as it's shown to me.  Which brings me to the peeve.  If you're going out and doing any sort of ministry without first meeting the real present needs before you, you've got it backward!  I'm sorry.  You don't need to ask a homeless guy what you can pray for.  It's obvious, man!  Give the dude some food or clothes, or money even (if that won't send him into a bender).  Even regular people.  Just meet the needs, then work on the spirit.  you can't get teh spirit in tune until the animal is cared for.  But too often, Evangelicals are so after the soul part, they walk right over the needs of the moment.

And I have struggled with this for a while.  I once went and talked to a mentor of mine regarding this very thing because I was convinced I needed to start some direct ministry and was even going to abandon my community to "spend the energy on more holy pursuits".  But surprisingly, this person told me I had it all wrong.  He told me I already had my flock.  He cautioned me against what I was thinking for good reasons.  I asked how I make it more Christ focused and he said, "don't."  I was shocked, but it rang clear as a bell in my heart and mind.  I felt the peace about it.  He was right.  It went against my upbringing and theological training.  But he was right.  I should trust my heart over my head if the Spirit Lord is living in me.  When I get confirmation, I should drop anything that isn't in line with it.  But it's hard to do when I'm surrounded by the buzz of the other mess.  My mentor told me that I was to do what I'm doing.  Follow God's leading in the moment.  When he led me to speak, I'd speak.  Otherwise, live it first and foremost.  Serve my community.  My flock.  It's that simple.

And that's what I'm trying to do.  I just wish I could settle my head around these other issues.  Like I said, I think I need a period of intense study to come to terms with it so I won't keep feeling like I'm missing it when people start jawing that other stuff...that isn't wrong necessarily.  Do what you gotta do, man.  But let me do what I gotta do.

System

Most people aren't taught to think critically... to analyze.  I think everyone can to some degree.  I was fortunate to be trained in it from an early age, and then more formally in school.  I have a knack for it I think, so it wasn't hard.

Honestly, it has many benefits.  So I want to describe just a bit of the process.  But I doubt you'll actually take the time to see if it works because discipline is another thing most people lack.

Given any question or situation, you simply think to the next logical conclusion, then go back and identify as many other possible conclusions you could come to.  Then you weigh the liklihood of each.  Followed by the positives and negatives of the most likely. 

See, not that complicated.  The hard part is stepping outside of yourself (your own opinions, programming from school and culture, etc) to see other possibilities.  Of course it will be slow at first, but you'll get faster as you get used to it.

From there, you can expand into longer chains of conclusions, learn to work backward to causes, and even play with variables.  It truly turns the world into an erector set of constructs to play with.

But it isn't just mental gymnastics.  The goal is real world application.  The best illustration of it I've seen is in the Robert Downey, Jude Law Sherlock Holmes movies.  They freeze the film at pivotal moments and play through Holmes' thoughts. Then once he's decided, speed up and watch it play out.  It's just like that.  It happens in milliseconds if you get used to it, but can also be used on longer range things.  It's a type of systems thinking.  It allows you to predict many futures with reasonable accuracy and understand causes from mechanical things to emotions.  And it instills a desire to learn more.  Tools for the toolbox, so to speak.  Anything that helps us better process the massive overload of data our brains are constantly receiving. Most people just let their brains parse it out and it never enters consciousness.

This fact actually allowed me to disappear...to become invisible on several occasions.  If I can process what people are noticing and place myself outside of that, I very truly cease to be there in their minds.  I once walked right up to a friend I happened to see in a mall and took his bags.  I walked full in front of his view and he only saw me once the bags moved from his feet.  Another time, I appeared "magically" in front of a friend who was actually looking for me at a crowded movie theater.  I saw him, but he didn't see me until I stepped into his consciousness.  And I frequently used it to walk right past teachers in school, even as other kids would get stopped.

It's useful in driving because I can lay out a path through shifting traffic.  I have used it at work when I noticed that a certain terrible boss would always issue pointless orders (even though the work was done) as he blew through, but only if we were wearing the teal uniform shirts.  That was his unconscious cue.  So I'd casually slip mine off when I saw him roll in and he'd pass me by every time.  People even commented on it.  I told them, and it worked for them too.  Currently, I often leave a few "easter eggs", let's say, in a document or image I send for review.  This lessens the number of comments I get back because reviewers want to find things.  If they don't, they get pickier.  A few subtle but catchable mistakes, results in less needless overhaul.  Of course it's not perfect.  Sometimes unpredictable happens, but that's part of the game.

Of course, there's a downside, if you get really into it.  It tends to make the world far less stable.  In the long run, this is probably a more truthful view, and therefore better, but it makes security an utter illusion.  At best, our most protective systems only account for the few most obvious scenarios.  So if you take this to heart, get ready to swim in deep water forever.  Dry-ground is going bye-bye in this world.  Also, get prepared for the vast majority of people to not understand you at all.  You'll be labelled as negative, critical, manipulative, weird.  And you will be.  Or at least you'll be perfectly capable of it.  So be prepared to hold a tight moral and ethical compass.

Perception is not reality

I described this to someone recently.  I don't know where it came from originally.  I don't claim credit for inventing it.  She was going to look for it online.  Now she'll find it.