Anime Lectio: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

                                                            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. 

When a hero's journey ends, what happens after it?  Does the journey actually end or does the ending of a certain journey mark the beginning of a new one?  I believe the second part of the second question is the key to answering this question, as well as to answering the first one.  The Hero's Journey is an idea that explains how this journey works with the call, the response, the abyss, and the return.  Since a certain journey would end with a return from this journey, it would make sense that anything else that happened after it would mark the beginning of a new journey.  An example of this can be seen in the anime series Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

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.

After the original party of the main character dies and/or gets to old to accompany the main character on adventures anymore, like this party's adventure of defeating the Demon Lord/King, the main character forms a new party with the apprentices of some of her previous party members. In addition to the main character taking on one of these apprentices as her own, since both are talented mages, their adventures involve learning about each other, the people they meet in their adventures, and what else happens in their adventures as their main journey focuses on the main character, with her new party, reuniting with her old party in a place where heaven is literally a place on earth.

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.

The biggest focus of this anime, which is also important in any journey, is the concept of time. This is mostly due to the fact that the main character is an elf whose life span is longer than humans, dwarves, and other creatures. While the main character can take her time with the adventures on her journeys, her other party members, since they are not elves like her, can't. This is also something that the main character wasn't mindful of with her original party as she thought she would have more time to spend with them based on her understanding of time. However, she realizes that her notion of time is different from people who aren't like her at the funeral of one of her old party members, who most likely liked her as more than just a friend. This is also why she likes to remember what she did with her original party as she experiences new adventures with her new party. This includes her new party's main adventure journeying to reunite with the main character's old party, since she remembers her old party talking about the heaven on earth (it's more convenient if it does exist - a priest in her old party thought this). Time isn't always the same for everyone in terms of time as the Greek word chronos, or chronological time, but it's important for everyone as the Greek word kairos, or time as an event.

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 concept of time, including how it is different for all of us based on the Greek words chronos and kairos, as well as that our journeys in life never end, but go beyond what we think the end is.