So many things that surround us are reminders of God. To atheists or agnostics these reminders are cultural representations rather than Jesus-proper, but we are haunted nonetheless - even if the ghost takes the form of another fine piece of pop-ephemera. In this case, the deftly articulated clip for The Killer's 2007 single "When You Were Young".
Beyond connotations of my own youth, the song and clip nods to several of the key roles that religion plays in our day to day lives. The most important, however, is the idea of Jesus being representative of a paragon against which all other men should be measured. This contrasts in with the emotional turmoil faced by the woman at the centre of the story, who has to deal with the reality of her cheating husbands' ways. She's haunted by her warm, idealistic memories of the way things were and it amplifies the confrontation until it's nearly too much to bear.
If we take a walk with the idea of the incomparable paragon into a a foreign land, there are some surprising revelations to be had. I saw Kevin Rudd in the flesh for the first time last month, and not in the way I ever thought I would. There was no press conference to buffer our interaction; we were both in the unique circumstance of being invited to the funeral of someone we didn't even know. My partner is a journo too, and he was on assignment so I tagged along to the funeral of Sapper Jacob Moerland in Gayndah, about three hours drive from Brisbane.
Gayndah was not dissimilar from Hillston or any other small town I'd spent time in growing up. There was one main street, two pubs, a tiny RSL and an all-purpose town hall. In this case the hall also served as the venue for a federally transmitted funeral. After an expectedly gut-wrenching service recounting a good, honest life lost in the name of service the entire town spilled out onto the street past shops closed in mourning. The Prime Minister (at that time), Tony Abbott and most of the town continued down to the RSL for the guard of honour. The first shot slices through the atmosphere and everyone who can't see the guns jumps, the ghost of a bomb on the other side of the world echoes in our ears.
As I walk with only media for company back down the empty street, I think about the shared loss, the number of veterans in the procession, and the long lists of fallen in the memorial park. It's a town with disproportionately high military service, and a keen sense of loss. Moerland was three years my junior, and already in his life he had achieved much with many plans and a large, supportive church community. I felt sad for the community, as the service clung to God. What was clear for me from the way they spoke that what they were really clinging to was Jacob. But then, he doesn't look a thing like Jesus.
