All of us can look back over our lives and identify people who have been significant role models. One of those persons for me has been Huston Smith. Perhaps the most important American scholar of religions for five decades, Smith was born the son of Methodist missionaries in Dzang Dok, China, where he spent the first 17 years of his life. Now 96 and confined to a favorite chair in an assisted-living apartment in Berkeley, California, the old gentleman – eyes sparkling – still “banters in Chinese with his friend, Mr. Lin, the maintenance man” (Lisa Miller, “Huston Smith’s Wonderful Life,” The Daily Beast, 2009).