I live in California. Finally. I do have to remind myself a little bit every day. It’s not hard. I walk outside and see foothills in the distance. Sometimes they’re a little hard to see because of the smog, but they’re there. The breeze is cool. It’s in the 60s at night and in the morning.
I sort of feel like I’m on vacation. I sort of am…
Deus ex machina is a literary device that introduces God or the gods into the plot to solve all of the problems at the story’s conclusion. It’s considered bad practice and the easy way out. It translates from Latin to mean “God in/from the machine.” It’s extreme form of divine intervention in storytelling. If deus ex machina is used in what ever story you are reading/watching/listening to, you feel a bit cheated in the end that your characters didn’t have to earn their happy ending or work to triumph over evil.
People swear I’m part Canadian. I took six years of French and I love hockey. I thank Disney for that one. I don’t know what I thought was so inexplicably cool about The Mighty Ducks. Maybe it was the Flying V—an impressive feat on screen, but maybe not the most practical hockey play. Maybe it was the coolness of Emilio Estevez. I don’t know. Whatever the source, I’ve been hooked for 17 years, hockey pun intended.
On to one of the oldest forms of story—the written word. By far, the best gadgety purchase of 2009 for me was my Amazon Kindle. I convinced myself that I didn’t need one. I have an iPhone. There’s a Kindle app. I was good to go. After a week of my thumb feeling really tired from swiping pages every 8 seconds when reading on the little screen, I decided I might benefit from the 6-inch eInk wonder.
Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement by Will Mancini