Psalm 76:9
everyday time travel
Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation? (Psalm 76:9 DR)
We have all no doubt experienced moments in life that either seem to compress time or to elongate it. There are times of grief in which an hour can seem to stretch into days or years, or times of joy that pass in an instant.
In my own life I think back to my wedding which was an extremely joyful occasion, and I find myself struggling to remember most of it not because it wasn’t memorable, but simply because it seemed to pass by so quickly. It was so remarkable and so wonderful that it’s hard to capture in my mind all that happened. There are little snapshots in my mind, but they feel disjointed and somewhat unconnected, like a timelapse with more frames missing than present. Sometimes when I talk to other people who were present they remember things that I don’t recall at all, which I suppose is somewhat of a fun experience in that I get to sort of relive it by proxy all over again.
But then there are the trying moments, which always seem to cling onto time for dear life. There was a season of my life that was extremely difficult during which I was undergoing a transplant and all the resulting complications from that. Unlike the joyfulness of my wedding which makes things difficult to remember, the awfulness of this experience has the opposite effect and makes them difficult to forget. The moments at times still feel present, and even things like smells or sounds or certain songs or even days of the year can bring a flood of painful memories racing back.
The Psalmist seems to be in such a situation, for after exulting in his remembrance of the Lord and all his benefits, he now is recollecting within himself all of his own failures and sins and how they have created this rift in his communion with God. The just judgment of sins lies heavy upon him, and in his heart of hearts the Psalmist understands their gravity and his own wretchedness. But the memory of these failings is twinged with a certain hope in God’s mercy which he has been shown before.
Therefore he rhetorically asks if God will forget him forever, or shut off his mercies forever. He stretches this moment of grief beyond even his own life far into the future, wondering if God’s mercy will cease even unto his children and his children’s children.
In this moment suspended in time the Psalmist begins to confront his own interior depths and acknowledges his own wretchedness and helplessness before God. The very rhetorical questions about God’s mercy demonstrate this humility of spirit, for the only reason to ponder God’s mercy is because one recognizes the need for it. In this place of humility God’s grace can overflow into the human heart, as the Psalmist recognizes elsewhere:
It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications. (Psalm 118:71 DR)
In these moments of solitude and prayer we have the opportunity to come to God in humility and submission, acknowledging our sin and weakness and imploring his mercy. This moment may seem to stretch on for an eternity, but it can become a conduit for future joy that surpasses the pain of the present.
This animation was pretty simple but also kind of fun.
I found this great photo of a flower (even though it appears to be an illustration) and cut it out in Photoshop. I then brought it into After Effects and added a simple oscillating rotation to it.
Next I duplicated it many times and placed the duplicates below in the layer stack and offset them in time and on the canvas, as well as modified the transparency and blending modes of some of the ones in the background. I thought it created this really nice subtle look.
I then typed out the text and drew an ellipse mask on the text layer and applied the mask to the text path to get it to follow the curve of the ellipse. Lastly I added some color correction and the animation was complete.
Enjoy.
Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation?
(Psalm 76:9 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: