Anime Lectio: Galaxy Express

                                                             1. Why do Anime Lectio? 

Anime Lectio is a time for us to stop and take a breath. Between work, activities, family life, and social media, our minds are always moving. We rarely take time to contemplate and ask, why am I watching this anime? What’s the point of all this? And, how is this making me feel? 

2. Put away all distractions 

(phones, work, etc.)

We are so enslaved to things that stimulate our minds. Let this be a moment for us to free our minds, look inside of ourselves, and be at peace.

3. Deep Breathing

Take several deep breaths. Let your mind relax. If you’ve had any questions, desires, or struggles that you’ve been hiding or stuffing away, let them rise up to the surface. 

4. Open yourself to God’s Presence

Remember God places all our thoughts and desires inside of us, and He uses them to draw us closer to Himself. God gives us a community to help us understand who we are and what He is calling us to do. The faces of other people you know and don't know are like signs of God’s presence.  

5. Think About What’s on Your Mind in Relation to the Anime

Think about what’s been on your mind in relation to the anime.  The following is an example of such thoughts written by me.

What do we really want to do? We may have ideas about that, but these ideas can change over time based on what happens, like doing what we wanted to do and wanting to do something else in order to have something else to do. Or it could be that we end up doing some other things too because it's part of what we want to do. Or it could be a combination of these things. Whatever happens, and however it happens, the question of what do we really want to do is important for all of us.

6. Brief and written explanation of the anime

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the anime seen on this blog, or seeing the anime for yourself since that's better than any explanation, might “speak” to you or shed light on the things that have been on your minds.

Note: The anime film Galaxy Express is a shorter version of the anime film Galaxy Express 999. You can read more about these differences, as well as other things about it, in the chapter about Galaxy Express 999 in the book Anime Impact. For this post, I will be talking about the anime film Galaxy Express since I couldn't find the original version to watch.

A young boy tries to find a way to board a train called the Galaxy Express. The Galaxy Express is a train that can take him to where he can replace his body with a machine one. He thinks that he needs a machine body in order to find and kill the person with the machine body that killed his mother. Due to what he tries to do in order to get on the Galaxy Express, he ends up as the escort of a woman that happens to look like his mother. Before getting to where he can replace his body with a machine one, the boy has other adventures and finds other things, including the person with the machine body that killed his mother. The boy manages to kill him without a machine body, so now he thinks that not only does he not need a machine body, but also that no one else does either. In all of these adventures, he learns what it means to be human.

7. Reflect on the anime

Has this brief and written explanation of the anime, or seeing the anime, shed any light on what's been on your mind? The following is an example of a reflection on the anime from me.

What it means to be human is to ask yourself what you really want to do and to be able to have experiences that can help you answer that question. Having ideas about this and having these ideas change is also part of what it means to be human. Humans can't live as long as machines, or other immortal beings, but experiencing life as a human with the possibility of dying is how you can figure out what you really want to do in life.

8. Final Prayer

Please voice any prayer intentions for friends, family, or people around the world that relate to this anime. The following is an example written by me.

Let us pray that we can figure out what we really want to do with the time we have based on adventures we have as human beings.