oneself

The man who wrote “Taxi Driver” has, in his 70s, given us “First Reformed,” “The Card Counter” and “Master Gardener,” movies about solitary men wrestling with the task of living in a world that humanity has wrecked, and the dread of discovering oneself personally unforgivable for one’s place in it.

Cecilia González-Andrieu, professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University and co-chair of the LMU Latino Theology and Ministry Initiative, said the core of the religious practice of Advent is to put oneself into the lives of the Biblical characters Mary and Joseph and imagine what it would be like to prepare to receive the child of God.

It turned out that the tendency to distance oneself from products liked by political opponents was further reinforced.

And it’s sort of a proclamation to oneself that there’s nothing in the universe that will stop you from flying, rising.

“To have someone who can challenge you and go back and forth verbally and have it turn into something that’s not violent is a way of improving oneself.”