{"id":95462,"date":"2022-06-16T14:48:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T20:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=95462"},"modified":"2022-06-16T14:48:23","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T20:48:23","slug":"in-the-halls-of-the-mountain-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/06\/in-the-halls-of-the-mountain-king.html","title":{"rendered":"In the Halls of the Mountain King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
I\u2019m sitting in Bavaria right now, looking toward a really high and rugged portion of the Austrian Alps.\u00a0 It\u2019s slightly too dark to get a good picture, but this photo gives an idea of the general look of things around these glorious parts.\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Sahar Qumsiyeh is an assistant professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg and the author of Peace for a Palestinian: One Woman\u2019s Story of Faith Amidst War in the Holy Land<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 (The Interpreter Foundation published two reviews of her book soon after its publication.\u00a0 See \u201cPeace in the Holy Land,\u201d<\/a><\/span> by Shirley S. Ricks<\/a>, and \u201cDehumanization and Peace,\u201d<\/a> by Kent P. Jackson<\/a>.)\u00a0 With her kind permission, I share here four recent entries from her Facebook page.\u00a0 She posted them under the running title of \u201cBeing Palestinian\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part 1:<\/span><\/div>\n
American: your new ATM card comes automatically by mail.<\/span><\/div>\n
Palestinian: You go to the bank and spend 4 hours and have to show all your documents, fill tax forms and show proof of employment and then sign 25 documents, then get the bank manager to approve all your documents. Then you MAY pick up your ATM card at the bank in two weeks. AND If you don\u2019t spend 4 hours filling those forms again EVERY YEAR they freeze your account.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Part 2: You want to walk in nature.<\/span><\/div>\n
If you are an American in the USA: you go to the forest and walk.<\/span><\/div>\n
If you are a Palestinian in Palestine: you apply for a security clearance from Israel. Then you apply for a permit. You go to the checkpoint. The soldiers turn you back because you didn\u2019t come to the right checkpoint. You go to the other checkpoint and wait in line. Three hours (correction SIX hours) later you can finally walk in nature.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Part 3:\u00a0 You want to go to church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
If you are American living in the USA: You get in your car, you drive to church.<\/span><\/div>\n
If you are a Palestinian living in Palestine: You apply for security clearance. You get a permit (only if you are above 50, which I am). You take a taxi to the checkpoint, you go through security, and pass through metal detectors. You get to the place where they check your paper and the soldier tells you that even though you have a permit, your permit is valid every day of the week EXCEPT the Sabbath! You thought you were lucky to have a permit, but alas, your permit does not allow you to go to church on the day church services are held. You go back out of the checkpoint maze, take a taxi and head back home.<\/span><\/div>\n
FYI: my permit below says \u201cOld age permit\u201d, valid from 8 am to 10 pm, valid Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Church services at the Jerusalem center are held on Saturday. I still don\u2019t know why that is!! If they were held on Sunday like normal people, I would be able to go to church.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Part 4:\u00a0 Palestinian vs Israeli roads.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
We tried to go to Ein Fara today. It is a place with a natural spring.<\/span><\/div>\n
If you are Israeli: you d[r]ive on the nice paved road and pass through the checkpoint and get there in 2 minutes.<\/span><\/div>\n
If you are Palestinian: you drive on a dirt road for half an hour. You pay $2 extra for the entrance fee because you had the privilege of driving in the hills in the middle of nowhere and ruined your car.<\/span><\/div>\n
You can see the picture of the Israeli paved road and dirt Palestinian road.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
You should most definitely also read her blog entry \u201cMy trip home to Palestine.\u201d<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

If you want to look at her photographs of the Israeli and Palestinian roads, including a short video, see her Facebook page.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I can perhaps shed just a little bit of light on the question of why Latter-day Saint church services in Israel\/Palestine are on Saturday.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t involved in the decision to change our meeting day from Sunday to Saturday \u2014 I hadn\u2019t yet visited the Near East \u2014 but I participated in conversations about it later on and I was<\/em> involved in an analogous decision in Cairo to move our meetings from Sunday to Friday<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem with holding services on Sunday was that, for just about everybody involved at the time, Sunday was a normal workday and an ordinary school day.\u00a0 (The \u201cweekend\u201d went from Friday to Saturday.)\u00a0 This meant that such services had to be held in the evening.\u00a0 But people were tired by that time, children were cross, and it was impossible to feel that it was a real Sabbath.\u00a0 So moving to Saturday made sense.\u00a0 We had no Palestinian members of the Church in those early days \u2014 not, at least, so far as I am aware \u2014 and, therefore, the problem of participation by members in the Palestinian territories didn\u2019t come up.\u00a0 It was unforeseen.\u00a0 Moreover, it was from Sahar Qumsiyeh\u2019s Facebook notes above that I learned for the first time that the security clearance permit that, since her family home is in the Palestinian territories, she needs to attend church services in the Jerusalem Center specifically omits Saturdays.\u00a0 That is very, very unfortunate.\u00a0 (She is coming from Beit Sahur, which is directly adjacent to Bethlehem \u2014 so near, in fact, that, today, the two towns have essentially blended together \u2013and which is the traditional site of the annunciation of the birth of Christ to the shepherds.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The castle of Hohenschwangau, as seen from Neuschwanstein
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"lsjlfklas\"<\/a>
A view of Schloss Neuschwanstein from somewhat further up the mountainside.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After reading about Sahar Qumsiyeh\u2019s trip home to Palestine, it\u2019s difficult if not impossible to avoid seeming comfortably complacent and privileged while describing my own travels.\u00a0 But here\u2019s a brief and inadequate note about today\u2019s activities:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We had a reasonably relaxed morning, getting a comparatively late start.\u00a0 We drove with our tour group over to the area of Schwangau, not far away from our hotel, where two of the famous Wittelsbach dynasty castles are located.\u00a0 Our people had free time there for about ninety minutes or two hours or so; after walking for a few moments near the small adjacent lake, my wife and I and a number of others spent that time in the Museum der Bayrischen K\u00f6nige<\/em> (the \u201cMuseum of the Bavarian Kings\u201d).\u00a0 Then, after lunch together, we visited Hohenschwangau and, immediately following that visit, Neuschwanstein.\u00a0 To prepare the group at least a little bit for what they were going to see, I spoke to them on the bus yesterday about both the music and the life of Richard Wagner and about his enormously important relationship with King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the M\u00e4rchenk\u00f6nig<\/em> or \u201cFairy Tale King.\u201d\u00a0 We also played some brief excerpts of Wagnerian music for them, and I provided very concise plot summaries of his operas or \u201cmusic dramas\u201d Lohengrin<\/em> and Tannh\u00e4user<\/em>.\u00a0 I hope it helped.\u00a0 The castles are positively saturated<\/em> with Wagnerian stories \u2014 which, although he was a rather loathsome man, I\u2019ve grown to really love.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Buching, Halblech, Bavaria, Germany<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Sahar Qumsiyeh is an assistant professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg and the author of Peace for a Palestinian: One Woman\u2019s Story of Faith Amidst War in the Holy Land.\u00a0 (The Interpreter Foundation published two reviews of her book soon after its publication.\u00a0 See \u201cPeace in the Holy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIn the Halls of the Mountain King<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    ***   Sahar Qumsiyeh is an assistant professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg and the author of Peace for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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