The Wrathful Dove

Way back in February, my good friend Jason ran across the following quote from Shakespeare:

Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse.

-Spoken by Falstaff in Henry IV, part 2

He thought the phrase the wrathful dove fit perfectly for my blog, and I quite agreed!

After many weeks of procrastination, I’ve finally taken the time to update the site with a new logo and its new name. Thanks go out to the authors of the excellent Christian anarchist website Jesus Radicals whose logo featuring the raised fist with a nail through the wrist inspired me when I was designing the blog’s new logo.

I suppose here is as good a place as any for explaining the imagery for those who may not be familiar with all the symbols used in the blog’s logo.

I designed the symbol on the left as a Christian anarcho-communist flag. The color black symbolizes a world without national borders or boundaries that artificially divide the people from one another. The color red symbolizes the blood of comrades and martyrs who have died for humanity and for God. The black flag basis for the design is one of the historical symbols of anarchism. The cross is one of the most recognizable symbols of Christianity and obviously symbolizes Christ’s sacrificial suffering and submission on the cross for all people. The hammer and sickle is a sign of communism. It represents the unity of the workers and common people of the world via overlapping symbols for agricultural workers (sickle) and industrial workers (hammer). Taken altogether, I find it a beautiful symbol of a world of solidarity and unity under the loving Kingdom of Christ.

The symbol on the right combines the raised fist which has been used by various leftist movements over the years as a salute and a symbol of solidarity. The addition of the nail through the wrist brings a Christian dimension to the symbol and for me represents Christ’s unity and suffering with his people as they struggle to live lives that reflect the values and reality of his Kingdom. I added an olive branch clutched in the fist to emphasize the pacifism and non-violence that I embrace and believe an integral part of my faith and politics.

Hello Mephisto! It’s About Time

At some point in August last year, I found myself bitten by the blogging bug. However, being the somewhat neurotic perfectionist that I am, it has taken this long to finally get to writing a first post, and I still don’t have things the way that I like.

Despite the fact that there are a plethora of sites online that offer blogging services for anyone itching to publish their thoughts to the world, I decided that seeing as I run my own Gentoo Linux server at home, I would go through the trouble of setting up my own installation of a blogging tool. I figured that it would be a fun learning experience and that I would also enjoy the advantages of a fully customizable blog with no worries about having to rely on some corporate server to safeguard the stuff that I write. Call me silly, but I like having full control over my own data – especially if its going to be a journal like this one. Continue reading →