Those were the last words spoken to me by my cab driver as he dropped me off in front of my apartment last night, or rather this morning, at 3:00am.
Needless to say, it was quite the ride.
It started off relatively uneventful. We exchanged names immediately and quickly found common ground. Al was from Asheville, North Carolina. The same beautiful southern town where my Mom grew up.
I then gave Al the cliff notes version of my life story. We chatted casually about my growing up in Virginia and about why I made the move to Boston. And then things shifted.
All of a sudden, he hit me with it:
“Do you believe in God?”
It took me awhile to process the question. Did my cab driver really just ask me that? My thoughts must have been written all over my face because he quickly back peddled.
“I’m sorry. Was that out of line? Did I upset you?”
To which I had to respond with the cliff notes version of my religious/spiritual life story.
I guess he wasn’t particularly pleased with my lack of religious conviction because then he started preaching – and he continued preaching for the duration of the cab ride. And once we arrived at my apartment, he really started to hit his stride. He set the cab in park, turned to face me and drove his point home. Oh, and was he good! He kept closing his eyes for dramatic effect. He raised and lowered his voice to emphasize his most important points. I felt as if he could break into a gospel chorus at any moment.
After about 10 minutes of sitting directly outside my front door (yes, TEN minutes!), he finally started to notice my restlessness.
“I’m sorry. Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me.”
And so we closed in prayer.
I’m not kidding. He took my hands, said a prayer for me and then – finally! – sent me on my way.
“I love you and I’m going to pray for you.”
