University of Alabama gift shop in Jerusalem’s Old City. Never doubt the reach of SEC football.

-- Photograph Provided

Mississippians referring to our home state – and, for all I know, Tennesseans, Alaskans and everyone else when referring to theirs – tend to use the term “God’s country.”

The suggestion is that God has a softer-than-usual spot in his (or her) heart for the region cited by the speaker and expended special care in its creation.

But no state has nearly the claim on the deity’s attention and favor as the actual country I’ve just returned from: Israel. And, in particular, Jerusalem, its capital. It is a site of veneration and history for three of the world’s great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

How’s that for an all-star Holy Trinity?

The occasion for the visit was my recent birthday, which placed me at the psalmist’s threescore and 10 years generally allotted for humans on earth. A pilgrimage seemed to be in order, especially to those sites closely associated with my own brand of faith, Christianity. Israel is chockablock with them, with varying degrees of veneration attached to each.

Jesus covered far more ground in what is now Israel than I did, in fact, since both time and a pesky, mystery ailment limited my range. The Galilee region, scene of his youth and most of his ministry, was out of reach. But I did manage to make it to my top goals:

• Bethlehem, renowned as his birthplace

• The Via Dolorosa, or Way of Sorrow, regarded as his walking path on the way to his death on a cross

• The tomb from which he is celebrated as having arisen

Some of those sites have a better claim on historical accuracy than others. The Via Dolorosa, for example, as depicted by markers along streets and alleys in the Old City of Jerusalem, is “almost certainly not the route that Jesus took in his final days, in his final hours,” says the Rev. Hector Patmore, a scholar on the life of Jesus.

But, as Patmore also went on to say in an interview with NBC News in 2017, “this is a devotional route that’s been walked for centuries by pilgrims, and when we walk here we’re walking in the footsteps of centuries of pilgrims.”

I am now one of those pilgrims, more concerned with that act of devotion than with the authenticity of the route. Faith, after all, is not about certifiable facts.

Other general observations:

• Israel is a lot less flat than I expected, which speaks to my basic ignorance of its topography. Based on what I saw, Jesus could have given sermons on many mounts.

• Rain does not appear to be a frequent summer visitor. But our guide in Bethlehem assured us that, come Christmastime, as much as a half-meter of snow isn’t unheard of. He even showed me a picture of it at his house, lest I doubt him.

• There are many hungry cats around and about in Jerusalem, and my wife did her best to ease their suffering with handouts. But beware: If you do so near the outside tables of a restaurant, the owner might take issue. Loudly.

• Shabbat – the Sabbath – all but shuts down Jerusalem for 24 hours starting at sunset Friday. In anticipation, throngs of the Jewish faithful make their way to pray at the Western Wall in the Old City, the last vestige of the ancient Jewish temple. Heading in the other direction can be a salmon-upstream experience.

• “You’ll see a hundred different types of Jews today,” one tour leader told a group of young, presumably Jewish, visitors to the wall. I suspect he was exaggerating, but a broad range of garb does differentiate a variety of traditions.

• Along those lines, some of the headgear for Jewish men made my sun-shielding, Fosters-logo bucket hat look practically mainstream.

• The most moving, and deeply disturbing, moment for me came in the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. One of the exhibits that recount the many large and small horrors inflicted upon Jews and other victims by the Nazis included a black-and-white video graphically showing emaciated death camp bodies being bulldozed into a common grave. My mouth literally fell open. The inhumanity was, and is, astounding.

Overall, Israel was an enlightening experience on many levels. Eye-opening. And reaffirming for my faith – with one exception. Deep in the bowels of the Old City, I happened across an “Alabama Shop,” its door devoted to a recounting of national football championships won by the Crimson Tide. Really, is nothing sacred?

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.