Anime Lectio: Suzume

                                                          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. 

Life and death are two sides of the same coin.  It's important to remember this when thinking about death daily, which is something that I'm encouraged to do as a Benedictine monk (mentioned in Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict, which was written as a guide for Benedictine monks by the founder St. Benedict).  While death is something that people don't like to think about, especially thinking about it daily, it's important to remember that it's part of life.  An interesting example of this can be seen in the anime film Suzume.

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 film Suzume starts off when a girl notices a random door in some ruins near where she lives. She leaves this door open, but as she's going off to school, she comes across a guy who asks her if she's seen any doors around. The girl doesn't think much of this at first, but when she sees dangerous things, she realizes it's coming from the direction of that door she left open, so she goes back to where that door is and sees that the guy who asked her if she's seen any doors around is there, trying to close the door to stop the dangerous things from coming out. She helps him close the door and continues to do this by traveling with him when he ends up taking the form of the girl's little wooden chair that her deceased mother made for her when she was little by a cat who wants the dangerous doors open. When traveling together to close the dangerous doors, they learn a lot about themselves, especially the girl since she can see what's inside the doors, which is where her dead mother is.

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.

As I said earlier, life and death are two sides of the same coin. Another way of understanding this relationship is that life is what you can see most of the time and death is what you can't see most of the time. In the anime movie Suzume, death is something that some of the characters try to prevent by stopping dangerous things from happening. Death can be delayed, but it can't be stopped. Delaying it is good in terms of preventing bad things from happening that can lead to death, like preventing accidents that you can do something about and/or know about, but delaying death isn't the same thing as stopping it. No matter how you understand life and death, it is good to think of, as well as pray about, both when you are trying to understand either life or death.

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 understand the relationship between life and death.