Bryant McGill's Blog, page 89

Vocabulary: Word List 10

surreptitious : done, made, or gotten by stealth; also, marked by stealth. superannuated : belonging to a superannuation plan; obsolete through age or new technological or intellectual developments. parsimony : excessive sparingness in the expenditure of money. sycophant : a servile or abject flatterer; an obsequious person, a toady; a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage. transgenic : an organism whose genome has been altered by the transfer of a gene...

The battlefields of life were first meadows and gardens

The battlefields of life were first meadows and gardens. We made them into battlefields, and by the same power, we must release the dark spell, so they are meadows and gardens once again. Through our nobler thought choices, we must reclaim the physical and metaphorical lands of opportunity, and build peaceful gardens in our hearts, communities and throughout the world. The truth is now as it was yesterday, and as it always will be, that the world is -- as we are. The outer world is a reflect...

Once you connect with yourself, it is impossible to be lonely or desperate

From a young age, something kept whispering to me, that things were not right with the world; that something was not right with ME, as a product of an unnatural and dis-eased society. There was a call in my heart to journey beyond the path placed before me, and one-day, I answered that call. As a troubled teen, with deep turmoil and fear in my heart, and with two apples and $12 dollars as my only possessions, I opened my door, walked to the highway at the end of a country dirt road, stuck ou...

The supreme lesson of education is to think for yourself

An important part of revolution is thinking for oneself and diversifying sources of information and education. Defiance and creativity go hand-in-hand. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said over and over, the world is in dire need of an "International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment." Much of education today focuses on obedience skills rather than critical thinking skills. This is because if you teach a child true critical thinking skills, you potentially create a problem...

Beloved Shooting Stars

Once upon a twilight streak
I cried upon your name
Like the tear upon my cheek
Across the sky your flame

I wished upon your magic sight
A kiss upon your gleam
With lips a whisper O' so quiet
My silent hopes and dreams

Then you vanished from my sky
Your twilight life so fleeting
It's sad we had to say goodbye
So quickly after meeting

I will come to find you soon
My friends upon night's sky,
Wherever souls are wishfully strewn
Like whispers, when we die.

Vocabulary: Word List 9 - Political

authoritarian : characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom; favoring, denoting, or relating to government by a small elite with wide powers. commoditization : the action of turning something into or treating something as a (mere) commodity. corporatization : to be influenced by or take on the features of a large commercial business, esp. in being bureaucratic and uncaring; the spread of corporate structure. corporatocracies : describing a situati...

Open your eyes to your power and beauty

If you are open to receiving the essential nature of life, its intelligence will flow through you like a great river. If a thousand people observe the ripples of water in a stream, they will describe many similarities. Observing the stream of eternal and simple truth is the same for all who look upon the fountainhead of consciousness. Any self-realized being, as opposed to the artificially produced modern “person” -- has access to the dynamic genius which nature gives all beings. Even your b...

Vocabulary: Word List 8 - Philosophy

solipsism : the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. relativism : the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute. asceticism : the principles and practices of an ascetic; extreme self-denial and austerity. the doctrine that the ascetic life releases the soul from bondage to the body and permits union with the divine. austerity : the quality of being austere; the trait of great self-de...

Bullets Testify

American Christians
export more bullets than bibles,
that find their way into the hearts
of children around the world,
making them--into believers...

Vocabulary: Word List 4

ameliorate : to make better. bifurcate : to divide into two branches. amicable : characterized by friendliness and good will. equivocate : to be deliberately ambiguous or unclear. amity : friendship; friendly relations. eschew : to shun; to avoid. anathema : a curse; a person or thing cursed, or intensely disliked. erudite : characterized by extensive reading or knowledge. ancillary : subordinate, subsidiary; auxiliary. incontrovertible : indisputable; unquestionable. animus : a feeling of ill will; a...