Palm Sunday

Carthage, coast of Tunisia, spring 1980. 

This may be the only photograph of me and a palm tree. I knew nothing about palm trees until I lived in Tunisia near the Mediterranean coast as a college student. The palm on the right is a date palm, and they were everywhere.

Carthage was Rome's rival until the second century B.C.E. North Africa was also important in early Christianity--it was the birthplace and home of St. Augustine (354-430 C.E.), whom we have to thank for the doctrine of original sin as well as, arguably, the first memoir. Until I lived in Tunisia, I knew practically nothing about either Augustine or memoirs, but I had been taught the doctrine of original sin, all right.

Between the end of the Carthaginian empire and the days of Augustine, the city of Carthage under the Roman Empire was the site of the first North Africa Christian martyrs' death. Their names were Perpetua and Felicity, a 22-year-old noblewoman and her slave, and it was a gory affair that ended in March 203 C.E. Their story was told in the book Saving Paradise in 2008. In Tunis for a few days last fall at the date-harvest time, I not only got to eat fresh golden dates but I met a professor from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Thomas Heffernan, who has finished an entire book just about Perpetua and Felicity.

Yes, I'm thinking of Holy Week, which starts today, but I'm also thinking of palm trees. Right now I'm thinking of the palm trees of Los Angeles, which are not native and don't live forever. A few years ago I read an article about them, I think it was Palms in Twilight in the L.A. Times. Date palms were the first palms to arrive in California, brought by Spanish migrants in 1769. Now L.A.'s palms are falling to disease, pollution, age, and competition for nursery stock from Las Vegas.

I wonder if anywhere there are blessings for the trees as there are blessings for the animals. Although house calls would be required. Or, you could do it yourself. If you know of such a practice, please write.

Comments

[Ruth]

A history of palms, what a great idea. I didn't know they weren't native to LA!

Love this picture.

[Corrine Casanova]

Blessings for the trees? A great concept. My folks are Winter Texans. I go visit them each year and am greeted at the Harlingen Airport by palm trees. It nearly takes my breath away. My folks live in a condo where someone is contracted to maintain palm trees. They scurry up the trees and take some of those palms down. If the trees aren't properly maintained, the dead palms collect and are a perfect location for rodents to nest! I guess I'll just stick with my evergreen trees.