MSI Press Blog

Puerto Rico The first time I got a chance to experience Spanish in its native environment was when my Army reserve unit was sent to Puerto Rico to fill in for a group of soldiers who had been shot in separatist activity (this was the 1980s, and there was some friction there). I was able to use Spanish everywhere I went, and my proficiency shot way up. What had been latent – quite a lot—quickly became active. Most places I went did not expect me to speak English even though Puerto Rico is completely bilingual. My skin tanned up nicely since I was working night shift and spending days in the sun where the dollop of Native American blood in my body took over and protected me from burning. Whenever I went somewhere to eat with my unit, most of the soldiers being white as white can be, the reaction from the wait staff was pretty funny. “What would you like?” they would ask my buddies. “Que quiere?” they would ask me, assuming that I was a Spanish speaker, given my browning-up-nicel...

  People often confuse reincarnation and purgatory , and at first glance, it’s easy to see why. Both deal with what happens after death , both involve some form of ongoing process, and both seem to suggest that the soul is not instantly “finished” at the moment of death. But beneath that surface similarity, they are answering the same human question in fundamentally different ways: What happens to us if we are not yet fully what we are meant to be? What Reincarnation Says Reincarnation, most commonly associated with traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism, proposes that: The soul (or stream of consciousness) lives many lives Each life is shaped by previous actions (karma) Growth is gradual and cumulative The goal is eventual liberation (moksha, nirvana) In this view, life is a cycle : birth → death → rebirth → repeat If you are not yet perfected, you return—again and again—until you are. What Purgatory Says Purgatory, as taught in the Catholic Church , is something quite...