Okay, sorry if you don’t get the IT Crowd reference in the headline, but Happy 2024!

I for one am happy to leave 2023 in the rearview mirror. It was, as they say, A LOT.

About this time last year my father took a fall as a result of some back issues and untreated/undiagnosed diabetic neuropathy. That was the beginning of an almost nine-month ordeal that saw his health decline rapidly, especially after an early April back procedure led to a series of what can only be described as systemic failures, ultimately resulting in his death at age 87 at the end of August.

During that time, I tried as best I could to keep publishing content here on the Accidental Tomatoes blog and on our podcast, but to be honest it was a struggle. And for the past several months, even after an intentional break to mourn and deal with estate matters, I’m still struggling to recapture the motivation to write for the blog or schedule interviews for the podcast.

Nothing new under the sun

For those of you who know me or have been following my work since I first jumped into the blogging world back in 2008 (bonus points if you remember FaithRants.com or The Awesomeness Conspiracy!), this kind of dry spell is not unprecedented.

Part of it, I think, is just my own natural creative cycle. In my first job out of undergrad back in the mid-1980s I had a boss describe me as a string of firecrackers that goes off like crazy for a little while and then burns a long, slow wick before another flurry of activity.

That was right before he, um, invited me to find employment elsewhere.

Regardless, these intervals of high productivity juxtaposed by long periods of struggling to find my creative muses are something I’ve come to recognize as simply the way I’m wired. The added burden of caring for my father just sapped me of nearly all of my creative impulses, making the dive deeper and the rebound more difficult.

From catharsis to community

Those boom-and-bust cycles were all well and good when the primary reason I was blogging was to get stuff off my own chest. Writing has always been an act of catharsis for me, a way of processing the complexity and nuance of ideas and events. Blogging just created a way to get those things out of the confines of my own head and bring other folks into the conversations.

When the term “deconstruction” started gaining traction in the latter half of the last decade, I started noticing how well it described my own experience…and how more and more people seemed to also be asking critical questions of our religious institutions, especially in the areas of biblical interpretation and church leadership.

So when I launched Accidental Tomatoes back in 2019, I had a different agenda than just creating a space for me to do my own external processing. I wanted to use the platform as a way to create community, to bring together people who are asking legitimate questions about their faith and its place in the world…not to mention those who are struggling with the changing role of the church in society.

I wanted to create a home for other “spiritual exiles” like me.

I knew we were on to something when more than 300 people signed up to follow our Facebook page in the first 24 hours after launch on Nov. 1, 2019 (we’re now well over 1,000 regular followers across all platforms with 20,000+ podcast downloads and almost 30,000 page views here on the website in our first 4 years).

Since that time, an excellent content team has come around me as Brad Davis, Heather Moore, and Jenny Williams have not only contributed some really thought-provoking articles for the blog side but have also been valuable partners in the podcast booth, serving as both guests and occasional co-hosts…not to mention their behind-the-scenes wisdom and support.

I can’t begin to describe my gratitude to them and other co-conspirators like Brandon Wood, Royce Lyden, Caitlin Ware, Krysta Rexrode Wolfe, Chris Wylie, and Josh Scott. I’m also grateful to the Wild Goose Festival community and the folks from New Wineskins who continue to inspire ways to look at life and faith with a more and more open mind and heart.

All of that is to say that I feel a profound since of responsibility to the community we’re forming here. And while I appreciate all of the grace and generosity you’ve shown me during these past few months since dad’s passing, I also feel like it’s about time to get back to doing the work.

Getting out of my own way

I wish I could say that I’m posting this to share with you what our plans are going forward, but the truth is I’m still trying to figure that out.

I’ve been around long enough and seen these patterns repeat themselves often enough to know that I’m in one of those liminal spaces where things are still sorting themselves out.

And if I’ve learned anything about myself in my 60 years on the planet and several successive waves of spiritual deconstruction, it’s that the only way for me to do that is to get out of my own way.

So for now, here’s what I can say: You can start looking for more regular blog content over the next couple of months as I revamp our content schedule and invite a few more guest writers to contribute.

I also plan to reboot the podcast soon for our 5^th season (woot!) as soon as a few more things get ironed out. It’s possible (probably likely!) that I’ll scale back from our previous schedule of 25 episodes/year to something more like 12-15. There may or may not be a regular release schedule, at least in the short term, as Heather comes on as our new co-host and we work out a new set of routines.

I’d also like to connect more with you! I’m currently playing around with the idea of some kind of weekend retreat, or maybe a gathering at this summer’s Wild Goose Festival. If that’s something you’d be interested in either attending or helping to plan, please reach out to me by posting a comment below, connecting through social media, or emailing me at accidentaltomatoes (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thanks for your patience. Let’s see what we can create together.

---

Feature Image Credit: Sergii Baranov via pond5.com