As another day dawns and the displaced migrants at Calais (and at other border points) are pilloried by the UK Government, as the chaos unfolding and the loss of business caused by trucks being parked up, unable to cross the channel is blamed, not on port and ferry workers engaged in industrial action, but on those same migrants, treated with less dignity than we treat livestock, as (some)UK tax payers cry foul at the tax funded BBC filming Songs of Praise from a sanctuary erected in the migrants' enclosure and as that same callous UK Government seeks to spend £7 million on a fence to imprison the migrants, already dehumanized by (some) reactive hate filled media reporters, I offer this prayer, written, earlier in the week for Sanctuary First.
Refugees
Queued at ferry ports
Hanging around dock yards
In the cold light of day and under the cover of darkness
Gathered up like cattle
Escorted back to persecution and death
As you see these now familiar sights O God
What are your thoughts?
As you see small boats washed up without their many occupants
who now lie at the bottom of the ocean
What are your thoughts,O God?
As you see prosperous nations refusing to offer aid
or even temporary shelter or asylum
What are your thoughts O God?
And as you witness us redrawing boundaries
feeling our security threatened by the plight of others
Or, worse, turning to look the other way
What are your thoughts,O God?
Your son was often far from welcome
in our streets and towns
seen as a threat to security
a challenge to the authorities of the day.
What are your thoughts O God
as you see your children today
still closing ranks
still refusing to share
still condemning others to death
God help us to see what you see
and to be convicted by your thoughts
until we open the borders of our hearts and our minds
to make room for all your people.
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