sometimes the toast gets burned. That is OK.

​When I was a young kid, my great-grandpa ate a lot of burnt toast. It was like his toaster was a slot machine or something. Sometimes the toast popped up golden brown. Many times pure black.

He used to say, that's OK. There's penicilin in that black. It's good for you.

There was a lesson happening in those moments. I'm pretty sure it's one he really wasn't intentionally trying to teach me. And if it was, I'm pretty sure he was hoping it wouldn't take me 50 years to get it.

But today I DO get it.

The lesson is, we can spend our time hovering over the toaster making sure that bread turns out just right. Or we can spend our time figuring out how to make the best out of that bread no matter how it turns out.

I actually DID burn a piece of toast last week. My first thought, I wonder if this will help me fight off COVID...🤷‍♂️

I've heard it said that fear is a liar. I agree with that. I think fear's partner in crime might be control. In fact, the more I think about it, control might be the gang leader; most fear comes when we begin to sense we're no longer in control of a situation.

If that's the case, many of us are being programmed by others and by ourselves - to live in fear. We live our lives making plans for the best education and job and all the american family and the all american neighborhood. We point our lives with laser focus toward having the best of everything.

Sure, for some people, I suppose that toast pops up golden. But for many of us - life doesn't go as planned. And if you're only prepared to live out the best made plan - and not the plan that showed up uninvited and screaming that your best made plan ain't happening - you suddenly start spending a lot of life walking around saying, 'this ain't how it was supposed to go.'

I think about my great grandpa - coming up in hard times - world wars and the great depression. I think about how that likely shaped his understanding about life and how it doesn't always go the way it is supposed to go in our minds. And how maybe that made him a little better at making the best out of life no matter how it went.

I think about us. COVID. Maybe this is our great depression moment. I wouldn't dare make a comparison of the two other than to say it would seem to be a moment when many of us are feeling and saying, 'this ain't how it was supposed to go.'

COVID seems to have disrupted a lot of best made plans. It's made a lot of burnt toast.

COVID seems to be teaching us a lesson. I don't know if it's intentional or not. If it is, I hope it doesn't take us 50 years to understand it.

It's nice to have great plans. It's even better to be great at making the best out of our lives when plans don't go our way. I'm figuring that out more and more every day. And hey, one of the benefits of that, I truly do enjoy a piece of solid black burnt toast....