Sentence:  Time and again in counseling and teaching , one encounters members of this group whose attempts to bring into some kind of unity the insubstantial mythologies of their `` fundamentalist '' heritage and the stubborn reality of the modern world <WSD>are</WSD> only too painfully obvious . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)