A land of promise

I learnt today that the term 'refugee' originated from the French when in the early 1700s thousands of French Protestants, known as the Huguenots, fled religious persecution and spread out over Protestant Europe – 50 thousand of them landing on the British shores in search of refuge and thus the term 'refugie' was born.

'Refugee' is a term we know well in Jordan.
The word may be new;
But the process is not.

People have fled persecution since the dawn of time
Towards our land of promise;
Hope everlasting.

For the land 'beyond the Jordan' has always been
A place of refuge;
A 'blessed neighbourhood'

Of silence and the sounds of survival
Trekking…
Thousands of years and counting.

And so it continues ...

But a strange wind is now blowing down the King's Highway
Taking the sheath from the husk
Of our existence.

For how much longer will our neighbourhood be blessed? ...J