QUESTIONS OF CALLING

unearthing beauty, mining meaning, and seeking truth

This is a place for anyone who wants more, who is not content to be comfortable, who seeks a life of truth and meaning, not just happiness.

Here, we ask hard questions, tell true stories, and turn life inside out to unearth the ragged beauty within.

I’m honored to have you to join me.

Mara Eller 7/10/21 Mara Eller 7/10/21

Riding Out the Storm: Finding Strength in Life’s Hardest Moments

On the surface, my life is pretty good, great even. I’m incredibly privileged, with three beautiful children, a loving husband, a flexible, meaningful job, great friends.

But sometimes I feel like I’m drowning.

Not the thrashing, panicked, violent kind of drowning. Rather, like I am fighting a rip tide day after day, treading water, working so very hard just to stay afloat, weary to the bone—drowning almost imperceptibly. Silently. Drifting further and further from shore as I struggle to summon another surge of energy and intention . . .

Mara Eller 7/10/21 Mara Eller 7/10/21

Beauty in the Unexpected

If you’re like me, you rely daily on an illusion of control. For most of us, the last five months have shattered that illusion.

This week I did some searching, and amidst the muck of unexpected difficulties and the slime of impossible decisions, I found some unexpected beauty and meaning blossoming—flowers fertilized by all the sh*t we have been wading through, blooms I never would have seen if all had gone according to my plan.

Here is what I found.

Mara Eller 6/26/21 Mara Eller 6/26/21

Life, Unexpected

I did not expect August to look like this, to have us going on five months trapped in our houses and visiting with friends almost exclusively via screens, the oppressive summer heat having become another warden, barricading us in our homes day after day as the school year looms (for us both as teachers and as parents) full of uncertainty and anxiety…

Mara Eller 6/12/21 Mara Eller 6/12/21

A Childlike Faith

We were taking an evening walk around the neighborhood, dodging the thunderstorm that menaced on the radar forecast. My infant was strapped to my chest, and I pushed my worn out three-year-old in the stroller. My five-year-old walked on her own two feet, running and skipping, leaping and twirling, her legs long like a gazelle, her voice a constant stream of questions and commentary.

Suddenly the conversation took a serious turn. "Mom, I wish God didn't exist."