December 2001 Call to Action News

Sexuality: It's not what you thought

In a ground-breaking presentation, Terry and Holly Nelson-Johnson used practically every medium known to humankind to communicate their profound insights on sexuality. There was music, dancing, interactive play, even television replays - all aimed at getting across the idea that sexuality is "learning how to hold and to be held, by each other, by life and ultimately by God." It's very much like swimming, said Terry, "allowing the water to hold you," and that's why baptism, going down into the water and coming up again reborn, has such powerful significance.

In its largest sense, he explained, sexuality is involved any time we are "using our bodies to add power to something good we are trying to communicate." To illustrate this, the Nelson-Johnsons showed via video the raucous hugging and clinging celebration of a baseball team after the final out in a World Series. "Oh, look at all that sex going on," said Terry in mock shock. "That's terrible." Then in a more serious vein, a clip from the movie, "Dead Man Walking," portrayed Sister Helen Prejean placing her hand on the shoulder of the condemned killer as he walked to the electric chair, while the prison chaplain, standing at a safe distance, gave his blessing. In both examples, said the Nelson-Johnsons, sexuality is being used to make love present. Accompanied by a song, Holly's moving dance said we have to know ourselves as touched and embraced by God in life and in death. "Jesus used his sexuality all the time," said Terry; he touched, he embraced, he used his body to connect with the world.

Unfortunately, they added, sexuality is more often identified only with intercourse. People therefore put no more value on it than they would on a CD disk, whose purpose they don't understand. For illustration purposes here, Terry and a volunteer from the audience tossed a CD back and forth carelessly like a frisbee. Or, said, Terry, people think of sexuality as capable of playing only one note - for the purpose of conception - so "they never hear the concert."