Psalm 90:3
catching birds
For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word. (Psalm 90:3 DR)
At the beginning of Compline every night is recited this text from the first epistle of St. Peter:
Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8 DR)
And just as formerly Psalm 90 was prayed every night (and fittingly so for reasons previously elaborated), so this text from 1 Peter is fitting for the prayer before retiring for the day, as bodily rest should not be taken as an invitation to be diligent in virtue. We are not in some neutral world that is safe from distress or harm; rather, this text notes that like a lion the devil seeks to devour us. This language indicates that temptation is not an accidental happenstance or something we just randomly fall into; rather, we are being hunted and must act accordingly.
The Psalmist places his confidence in the Lord, that the Lord has saved him from the snare of the hunters. These snares, like all snares, are intentionally set and generally either use a form of bait or distraction to ensnare the prey.
For example, with a mousetrap we place something alluring (like cheese or peanut butter) onto the pad which, when depressed, snaps the trap on the mouse. This is analogous to positive temptation which attempts to allure us by means of our desires, that by satiating our appetites we may fall into something worse or habituate that vice which makes it more difficult to escape.
On the other hand, some snares are by means of distraction. We might hide the trap or cage or whatever out of sight and then attempt to distract the prey through fear or some other device to run unwittingly into it. One is reminded of how buffalo were originally hunted by scaring them into running off of cliffs. This is analogous to negative temptation in which we are tempted to do something (or not do something) for fear of some evil befalling us.
St. Augustine considers the latter of these to correspond to the sharp word spoken of here in this verse:
But what is, “from a harsh word?” The devil has entrapped many by a harsh word: for instance, those who profess Christianity among Pagans suffer insult from the heathen: they blush when they hear reproach, and shrinking out of their path in consequence, fall into the hunter's snares. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 90, 4.)
He goes on to describe how birds are caught in hedges: a net is laid at the exit of the hedge, and then small rocks thrown into the hedge to scare the birds into flight, wherein they are ensnared in the net. The irony of the snare, however, is that the rocks thrown are of no danger to the birds:
Nets are usually spread for birds at the end of a hedge, and stones are thrown into the hedge: those stones will not harm the birds. When did any one ever hit a bird by throwing a stone into a hedge? (ibid.)
He further considers that the Christian will find the temptation from the sharp word both among pagans and among Christians, as those who live bad lives will always feel reproached by the virtue of those who walk in the way of Christ. The Christians should take heart that Christ suffered the assaults of the harsh word as well, but did so as example to stay on the way:
But what is it, when he hears such words, not to swerve from the way? On hearing them, what comfort has he, which prevents his heeding them, and enables him to enter by the door? Let him say; What words am I called, who am a servant and a sinner? To my Lord Jesus they said, “You have a devil.” [John 8:48] You have just heard the harsh words spoken against our Lord: it was not necessary for our Lord to suffer this, but in doing so He has warned you against harsh words, lest you fall into the snares of the hunters. (ibid.)
In this animation I wanted to go a bit abstract. I found this really great image of an astronaut held aloft by some balloons on Unsplash and cut it out in Photoshop. I also found some other images that I thought would work well for the background.
I composited them all in After Effects and split the astronaut image into two so that the balloons were on a separate layer from the astronaut. I then reworked the anchor points so the hand was attached to the bottom of the balloon strings and parented the astronaut layer to the balloons. I did a bit of position animation on the balloon and then some rotation on the astronaut to give a bit of a floating feel and then looped and offset those animations.
I use Trapcode Particular for the particles in the background, just a really simple bubble preset that I thought looked nice to give the background a bit of motion and separation from the foreground. I finally added in some spheres to use as mattes and duplicated the background and rotated and scaled it and used the spheres as track mattes. I had considered animating these, but I kind of liked them just hanging there static to create some more visual contrast.
Enjoy.
For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word.
(Psalm 90:3 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: