Driving home from class last night, the phrase, “you don’t have the sense God gave little green apples” drifted out of my memory bank and into my consciousness.

It’s true. I don’t. At least not these days somehow someways. Oh, I can follow through with classes and email and all the other things required of me, but bright new ideas and creative bursts seem lacking.

So I wrote the phrase down when I came home so I wouldn’t forget it this morning, and I pondered its meaning and history. Like most things when pondering meaning and history, I turned to the Internet. 

I couldn’t find much on the history of the phrase – lots on the definition of sense. Well, yes, but where do these saying some from? I remember my dad saying it from the time I was young.

There’s a vague reference to a Thomas Paine’s book, “Common Sense” written back in the 1700s with many phrases copied from British sayings. So, okay, maybe its history is lost in the annals of, well, history. Sort of like other things my dad said that didn’t make much sense like, “Red sky at night sailor’s delight.” I didn’t quite get that either.

Maybe I’m too literal. Maybe I want things to make sense too much. When you get right down to it, maybe we’re all wanting things to make sense in a world that just doesn’t more or less – make sense, that is.

Don’t little green apples have enough sense to get bigger and red? How do they do that?  

At the very least, little green apples probably have enough sense not to just sit and fret about what or where they are at any given time. I’m not sure the same can be said of humans. Much easier to feel frustrated with the slow gestation of time and energy.

I sent God a watch, and God refuses to wear it.

So perhaps what’s needed is to change our concept of little green apples rather than feel daunted by the smallness. Little green apples have everything they need inside them to accomplish great things. I expect the same can be said of us humans.