Anime Lectio: SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary Season One

                                                            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. 

How does one become ordinary?  What does that even mean?  Is ordinary just another word for normal?  Normal is usually understood as doing what other people usually do and not what you usually like to do that makes you different and stand out.  As for how to do this, this can be seen in the first season of the series SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary.

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.

In an attempt to live their own lives, both together and separately, a boy and a girl work on not doing what they usually like to do, which is solve problems.  However, due to one of their friends usually needing help to solve problems, which he knows that the boy and girl are good at doing, particularly the boy, the boy and girl end up getting involved in things they don't want to get involved in, which also involves their past selves.  After dealing with all of this, the boy and girl decide to stop being friends and get new ones after realizing that they were preventing each other from becoming ordinary.

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.

Based on what happens in the series, it seems becoming ordinary depends on who you attempt to become ordinary with, as well as why and when you want to do it, where you want to do that, and what you want to do to become ordinary. All of these factors help determine how becoming ordinary for you can happen. Finding the right person to become ordinary with can be difficult, as seen in the end of the first season of this series and continuing in the second season (don't plan to watch all of it, but that's most likely where it's going). Is becoming ordinary by yourself an option? It would certainly make things easier as you can determine the factors for becoming ordinary by yourself, but having one other person (or maybe even more) can help you figure out how to become ordinary if you don't know how to do that. Anyway, whether you do it by yourself or with others, how to become ordinary is a process that involves figuring out how to do it based on who you are and what it means for you to become ordinary.

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 and understand what it means for us, as well as others, to be ordinary and how we, and others, can become ordinary.