life.  God, through Jesus, has forgiven us all once and for all.  When he raised Jesus to life, he then sent his Spirit to us all and to his priests in a special way, to teach this message and to bring back to God those who have cut themselves off from Him by their sins.  Ali looked me in the eyes and said, 'If only I could believe that!'
I tried to explain the sacrament of reconciliation to him and how all of the Christian faith hinges on the belief that we are forgiven and have been promised life for ever with God the Father of us all.  I went on to say that sometimes in weakness we do turn away from Him and fall into sin, and it doesn't matter how seriously; we are not lost for ever.  Like the younger son in the story, we can always come back to him by confessing our sins and asking in real humility  for forgiveness.  This is what Jesus told us to do and we know that this is true through our personal experiences.
Many of those who had been listening to us turned away shaking their heads.  Ali and his companion, looked at each other and said something I couldn't catch, then turned back to me and said,  'What you say sounds good to us, but...'  After a moment he spoke again, 'If only we had something like this blessing you spoke of. But it isn't our way.'
The bus ground to a halt in a cloud of dust and most of the men got off, while many more surged on.  Ali and his friend had gone with the briefest of, 'God be with you.' and a touch of the hands.  I settled down in my seat for the last part of the journey, closed my eyes and prayed.  I thanked God for that encounter and for my first sermon on a bus.