Anime Lectio: Mieruko-chan

                                                          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.

It's usually easy to ignore problems that you don't want to deal with. You may have to deal with these problems at some point, especially if you live in a community, or with other people, which should be considered a community, and the problems you ignore influence others, not just yourself. This is something that my community needs to talk more about soon to prepare ourselves for our upcoming election of the leader of our community and our future after that. What you do influences the lives of others. It may be, and should be, different for everyone, but it happens, or should happen, to everyone.

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.

The Mieruko-chan anime series starts off with a girl who can see scary looking ghosts and/or monsters, but does nothing about this except ignore what's happening. Trying to do this usually results in comedic situations involving her friends and the other people that she interacts with. Sometimes what she sees isn't bad, like the ghost of her dead father or ghosts of other lost loved ones who just want to help their surviving loved ones. Sometimes what she sees is bad, even to the point of threatening, which she does get supernatural help to deal with for a certain amount of times (3 times). Sometimes the people she meets also look like bad people, but are really people who just need help.

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.

Besides the lesson of don't judge a book by its cover, or don't judge a person by what they look like, the anime series Mieruko-chan also takes a look at why ignoring your problems isn't always a good thing. What you see may be important to deal with, but at the same time, it may not be. If you're not sure whether these problems, or what you see, is important to deal with or not, then dealing with these problems, or what you see, may require a process of discernment in order to know if it's important to deal with, as well as understanding what you dealing with and knowing how to deal with it. Discernment is important for everyone, both on an individual and communal level. Like influencing the lives of others, it may be, and should be, different for everyone, but it happens, or should happen, to everyone.

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 the problems that we need to ignore and the ones that we need to do something about with the proper individual and communal discernment.