Terry Nelson-Johnson delivered a presentation entitled “Sexuality and Catholicism: Really?” on February 8. Held in the Coleman-Morse lounge and co-sponsored by the Gender Relations Center, Duncan Hall, and Ryan Hall, the event drew a crowd of well over 150 students. After praying together over Nelson-Johnson, members of Notre Dame Vision welcomed the audience and introduced the speaker.
Nelson-Johnson, a married Catholic, has a master’s degree from the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University and a doctorate of ministry from the University of St. Mary of the Lake, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the spirituality of adolescent sexuality. He is also the founder and executive director of Soul-Play, LLC, an educational enterprise which serves churches, families, schools, and adult retreats.
Sexuality, Nelson-Johnson said, is a mystery: “Once you get into [it] you can’t get to the bottom of [it].” Unique among creatures, human beings “ have the privilege and burden of asking, ‘What does our sexuality mean?’”
His first move towards an answer was to propose that sexuality is not something to be taken lightly. Nelson-Johnson illustrated this point with a personal story. As a young man, he enjoyed backpacking and once decided to take on Denali State Park in Alaska alone. After sitting through a 5-hour-long orientation in which the park guide repeatedly warned “Do not take Denali lightly,” Nelson-Johnson began his hike. Twelve days later, he was sure that he would never find his way out of the park. Fortunately, he happened across the lone road in the park and was soon picked up by a bus carrying incoming visitors and hikers. Nelson-Johnson’s advice to the audience: “Do not take your sexuality lightly!”
To help drive home his second main point, Nelson-Johnson invited a member of the audience to the front to play a “sex game” with him. He strapped basketball hoop-like structures around their waists, and demonstrated that by thrusting their pelvises they were to swing a dangling ball into their own hoops. Nelson-Johnson encouraged screaming and noise-making. Thirty mortifying seconds later, he revealed that the point of that spectacle was to illustrate that sexuality is not a game in which one aims to “score.”
Nelson-Johnson proceeded to discuss the American culture’s current view of sexuality, which focuses only on the bodily aspect of sexual activity itself. “What if the question, ‘Are you sexually active’ is more complex, demanding, and provocative than we normally give it credit for?” he challenged. Sexuality, he argued, should be seen as a gift given to everyone by God that drives them towards a fuller, more energetic, more passionate life. It is, he said, the source of energy for our relationships, for passion, creativity, and the “hunger, ache, impulse for joy, connection, intimacy, delight, healing, and meaning.”
In other words, sexuality is much more than the physical act of consummation. “When sexuality is well used,” Nelson-Johnson offered, “it makes love present, it makes life present, and it functions as a sacrament for God’s sake – it mediates God’s presence in the world.” Nelson-Johnson complemented this theory with a story of sexuality close to his heart. His mother, he said, despite being terminally ill for the last few years of her life, made love present to all who met her. In describing holding and caring for his mother on the last night of her life, he said, “I held my mom as she died and I hope I made love present to her. That was one of my proudest sexual moments.”
Throughout his presentation, Nelson-Johnson emphasized the importance of holding. By holding someone just at the right moment, he said with conviction, you are truly using your sexuality well because you are making God’s love present with and through your body.
Nelson-Johnson said that Catholicism’s key insights into sexuality is that, underneath “all the rules,” sexuality is a sacramental reality; it expresses what it signifies, a deeper reality brought into the world through the human body. Human sexuality is a reflection of God’s own powerful sexuality.
Nelson-Johnson concluded his lecture by asking the audience to pray for those who have experienced sexuality in a negative way and by genuflecting solemnly. Many students remained after the presentation to talk with Nelson-Johnson.
Gabriel Griggs is a sophomore PLS major who makes his dwelling place in Morrissey Manor. In addition to maintaining the sleep schedule of a senior citizen he enjoys competing on the crew team and being a recently-initiated Knight of Columbus. Contact him at ggriggs@nd.edu.
