For Christmas 1961 my mother bought me a nun’s suit from the St. Anthony Messenger magazine. 

To St. Joseph’s Church I would make my pilgrimage, pry open the heavy wooden portals; dip fingers in holy water fonts; part the stained glass doors across the narthex; genuflect when reaching the communion rail; kneel before flickering votive candles; and beg with the earnestness of a 9-year-old zealot that the impassive Virgin oblige me with the sign I sought—a raised eyelid, the slightest finger movement. 

She declined.

In 1765, when the American Colonies erupted over the Stamp Act, King George didn’t get it. Weren’t these subjects well treated? Did they not prosper from benign neglect? And this taxation they were incensed about was meant to cover the expense of defending them. What was their problem?

How could you ever lose the mental image of a Nazi tumbling from his tank, burning to death next to you? Or an American soldier kissing a little French girl’s cheek as joyous young women dance, celebrating victory in Europe? 

Baseball is starting up again and COVID-19 is still throwing fastballs. This isn’t the first time such good and bad news coexisted: Johnny Smith, professor of sports history at Georgia Tech, is co-author (with historian Randy Roberts) of the excellent War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War (Basic, 2020). Here are edited excerpts from our April interview.

On May 31, as protests and looting hit large cities and the airwaves filled with talk about the great need for racial reconciliation, I happened to be in Checotah, Okla. The city of 3,481 is the “Steer Wrestling Capital of the World”—and 3½ miles northeast of it lies the site of the most racially diverse battle ever fought on U.S. soil.

It’s pretty tough, some wise sage has observed, to overestimate the power of the printed page. 

Which prompts me to ask: Does the size of that printed page make any difference in its final impact?

I raise that issue because of a nostalgic discovery I made a few weeks ago, and which I share with you below on this page. It is a faithful reprint of the Sunday bulletin of the church where my father was pastor in 1949. The bulletin was a simple 3-by-5 black-and-white, front-and-back leaflet. It stirs my memory on two fronts.

Many of us are familiar with the Jerusalem event of A.D. 30 or 33 that is the turning point in all human history and our own salvation. Fewer of us know of the Jerusalem disaster of A.D. 70 that offers a crucial spiritual lesson.

Picture this scene 1,950 years ago: Roman legions, the top soldiers in the world, have spent four years subduing almost all of ancient Israel. Romans have crucified thousands, some upside down or sideways, and enslaved others. Desperate Judeans and Galileans have responded ferociously.