God Week

I was so struck by the diversity and energy and possibilities all genders could bring to our staid old Church when I read the poem – believe it or not – titled “Elvis Week” in the February 17 & 24 New Yorker that I had to pass it on.

Substitute “God” for “Elvis” and the “Catholic Church” for “Graceland”. Then rejoice with Hope in the poem, and hope in us all, that, with the inclusion of such a variety of people, this miraculous communion and blessing could happen:

Elvis Week

We go to Graceland for the vigil, Hope in the same fushia tube dress

she wore to our uncle’s funeral, but it’s O.K. this time around, no-

body hissing about what’s appropriate, not in Memphis in August,

99 at dusk, the dew point making people’s hair deranged. We clutch

our little candles from their cardboard cuffs, and mine keeps going

out, Hope leaning over to help relight it. There are as many Elvises

as Elvis fans, old and not so old and from the farthest reaches, roll-

ing strollers, luggage, oxygen tanks; so many stick-on sideburns; so

many ways to sweat. I don’t know it yet, but Hope’s blurred out on

pills again. We both buy buttons with the lightning logo: Taking Care

of Business in a Flash. One too-tall Elvis strums a ukulele, strolling

up and down the line along the gates and nodding solemnly, the crowd

just slightly hushed. Hope says, Can you imagine being loved this much?

– Caki Wilkinson