The first pulled up a news app and gave it a cursory glance before heading to bed.

The second started watching election coverage on television at dinnertime and didn't stop until well after midnight. "How could I go to bed?" She said, "The entire weight of democracy hangs in the balance of this election!"

Of course this year's election is important.  In fact, some people have been using apocalyptic language, not unlike what we  hear in Sunday's Gospel: 'You will hear of wars and insurrections,' and 'there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.'

Dancer and activist Lena Horne once said this, "It's not what you carry, it's how you carry it."

While we certainly have control over how we vote and even campaign and lobby for our beliefs, many of the things we face - health, financial, relational, and, of course, political, are beyond our control.

Often, we can't control what we carry, but we can control how we carry it.

This is where Jesus comes in with his neverending offer to help us carry the load, shoulder the burden, release the weight of it all. This is not a cop-out or an excuse to shun responsibility - but a gracious invitation to help us  keep our wits about us in turbulent times like ours

Handing over a burden, of course, demands proximity: to give it over to Jesus means being near him.

And so, in these tense times:

How are we carrying out burdens?

In what ways are our worries distancing us from Jesus?

How might we better hand over these things to the One who deeply desires to take them?

It's not what we carry, but how we carry it.