Hey friends, welcome to the Wabi-Sabi podcast. This is episode number 183. Today we'll be talking about one of my

favorite people that I have followed for a very long time. His name is Papa Francis. When I was young,

I was baptized following the traditions of my father's Polish, Roman Catholic side of the family.

They were devout Roman Catholics.

And years later, when I was in college, I did travel to the Vatican alone.

And it deeply moved me going to St. Petersburg at the time Pope John Paul was still the Pope.

And I also remember crying when Pope John Paul the second, a Polish saint, passed away nearly two decades ago.

While a lot of our families come from different places, maybe you're Buddhist, maybe you're

Christian, maybe you're Muslim, while my family came from two different parts of the world,

Japan and Poland, we practiced Buddhism, Catholicism, and Christianity in our household.

The common denominator was always love.

It did not really actually matter who studied what or what we believed in.

As we watched the humble and spiritual simple burial of Pope Francis this weekend,

I really reflected on this extraordinary body of work that he left behind.

It was impossible not to see a ray of sunshine just shining down on all of us.

What a lucky gift it was for all of us to have him for 88 incredible years,

a man who served as one of the most radiant

examples of faith, humility, compassion, and devotion in the world.

My hope is that Pope Francis can remain a living and breathing reminder to you that goodness and light still

exist in this world. I know that is really hard to believe and to grasp right now, but I do believe

that his passing was the beginning of something really beautiful because seeing over 2.2 million people attending his

funeral at St. Petersburg, I was sort of blown away and I remembered what it felt like to be

...