Take a peek behind the holy altar of your pastor’s public image
They are mortals with the same flaws, doubts, struggles and insecurities as everyone else
Doug Sheehy didn’t think twice about taking the iPhone from my hand as we pedaled along the Erie Lackawanna bike trail.
“You’re killing me, Jerry!” he joked into the camera.
I invited Sheehy for a long, sweaty ride on a scorching hot day. We thought recording a short video about my ill-timed invite would be funny for social media. And it was until, a second later, Sheehy wiped out on his bicycle after pedaling off the edge of the trail.
He fell hard yet didn’t drop my phone, which recorded the entire scene. Our 30-second video wasn’t supposed to be that funny. Or that serious. It was all my fault. I jumped off my bike to check on him. He scraped his arm, leg and hand, but no serious injuries.
“Thank God,” Sheehy said. “He protected me.”
I kept apologizing as I picked up his bike and put the chain back on its sprocket. (Watch the video on his Instagram page or my Facebook page, www.facebook. com/JerDavich/)
I’ve recorded dozens of videos while riding my bike, everywhere from the Golden Gate Bridge to New York City’s Central Park, so I didn’t think twice about whipping out my phone on an empty trail in Crown Point. My stupid idea, though, could have caused Sheehy serious injury. I felt horrible.
“If I wasn’t already going to hell, I am now,” I joked.
I told Sheehy this line on purpose because he is senior associate pastor at Living Hope
Church in Merrillville. He’s a servant for God. A devout believer. A preacher man. I often forget this when we’re together. He’s just Doug. I’m Jerry. We’re good friends.
Earlier that day, he thanked me for not introducing him to a friend as “Pastor Sheehy” or by using any other holy context. Not once did it cross my mind.
He may be a church pastor to thousands of other people. To me he’s Doug. And he’s fine with it, God bless him.
Our conversations cross the gamut of topics, from social issues to relationship dynamics to national politics to personal worship. Nothing is off the table. I’ll ask Sheehy anything, including questions he never gets asked by parishioners. I can’t help myself. His friendship means more to me than his vocation or title or religion.
I admire his faith but I don’t share it. I’m agnostic. Sheehy knows it. Would he love to someday convert me? Sure. It’s not a deal breaker for our friendship. He’s never preachy, even when quoting biblical Scripture. I greatly admire this trait, similar to many other pastors, priests, reverends, and imams who I consider to be my friend.
Maybe it’s because they, like me, are professional listeners. As one priest told me, “Sometimes we listen because no one else will.”
Although they are sworn servants to God, or Allah, or a holy deity, all of them are merely men with the same flaws, doubts, struggles and insecurities as everyone else, regardless of their faith, beliefs and social status. This is why I enjoy zeroing in on such aspects of everyday life. And why I find it fascinating to take respectful peeks behind the holy altar of their public image.
“Please call me Larry,” Bishop Larry Shaver once told me after I broke the ice with a few personal questions. At the time, Shaver was pastor at Anglican Church of St. Andrew the Evangelist in Merrillville. He didn’t buffer our conversation with religious dogma or lofty titles. We bonded instantly despite my spiritual limbo.
“I’m only the container, not the liquid,” Shaver said modestly.
He respected my lack of beliefs. I respected the simplicity of his.
“The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it,” he joked in his wispy voice.
I felt a similar immediate connection to the Most Rev. Bishop Donald Hying, the former leader of the Diocese of Gary who now serves God in Madison, Wisconsin.
“Call me Don,” he told me. I called him Don ever since.
The first time I interviewed him in his office, he pulled out a chair for himself rather than sit behind his office desk. It was a subtle gesture to reduce the formality of his position. I’ve never forgotten it. When I asked him how often he wears his priest collar, he replied, “Only on the job. On my day off, I dress like Joe Schmoe.”
The conversations I enjoy most with spiritual leaders focus more on mortal problems than immortal promises. If we also happen to talk about Jesus, eternity, heaven, hell and sins, that’s fine. It shouldn’t dominate our chat, though. Or even come up at times. If I want to be judged, I’ll talk with many of their parishioners.
“No questions asked, no judgments made, no preaching,” the Rev. Charles Strietelmeier once told me.
I loved that line. And I enjoy calling him Charlie.
“I regularly wrestle with the Lord,” Pastor Todd Matchett once told me.
I loved that line, too.
And I probably called him Todd.
Through the decades, I’ve enjoyed my exchanges with dozens of church leaders, including Tom Shanahan, the Rev. Mark Kurowski, Gary Nagy,
John Blakslee, Raymond Dix Jr., Greg Lee, and most recently the Rev. W. Maurice White Jr. from Beyond 4 Walls Christian Center in Gary. Last week I was asked to write a letter of appreciation for his efforts. I felt honored to do so.
It doesn’t matter that some pastors are convinced I’m a “closet
(fill in the blank)” — a closet Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican or believer of some kind. It’s human nature to recruit outsiders to your tribe.
I’ve never gotten that impression from Imam Mongy Elquesny from the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center. He hasn’t tried to convert me, only educate me about the Islamic faith. I appreciate this.
Sheehy offers similar teaching without preaching.
A few minutes before he wiped out on his bike, thanks to me, we talked about the significance of forgiveness in Christianity.
Let’s just say he practices what he preaches.