Anime Lectio: More than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers

                                                          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 difficult to know what we really want, which is why knowing what we really want is also difficult.  How do we really know what we want?  We may know, think, and/or understand what we want, but does that mean we really know, think, and/or understand what we want.  Certain experiences in our lives can help us with our understanding of what we really want, like the experiences seen in the anime series More than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers.

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 anime series More than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers starts off when two classmates who don't really have any feelings for each other end up as a married couple in an experiment for class. Despite this pairing, as well as the fact that another pairing consists of two of their classmates that they would rather be with instead, the two classmates who don't really have any feelings for each other decide to go along with the experiment since earning enough points in the experiment can allow you to change partners, which is what they both want to do initially. However, due to their own experiences, both on their own and together, which also include their friends, they do develop feelings for each other that become more and less complicated over time.

7.  Reflect on the anime

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

Knowing what we really want is always difficult, but this is especially true when it comes to romance, particularly teenage romance. Experiences that force you to do something that you don't really want to do at first, like pretend to be married to someone you don't really know, can help with this difficulty depending on how you see such experiences. Understanding these experiences also depends on what you think about them, which influences how you both see and react to them, so understanding them is important.

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 eventually understand the experiences in our lives that we don't initially understand in order to see what we really want.