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The Walk

Father Roderick

A weekly walk with Fr. Roderick during which he shares his thoughts as a priest on the struggles and challenges as well as the joys and surprises of day-to-day life.

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Sunday · 1 hr 1 min
What Season of Life Are You In?
One of the unexpected gifts of this past week didn’t happen while writing my novel or recording a podcast. It happened while walking through the woods. As autumn slowly announces itself here in the Netherlands, the first mushrooms are appearing among the fallen branches. They’re easy to miss, but every year they remind me that life has its own seasons. Some things disappear. New things quietly emerge in their place. I’ve noticed something similar happening in my own life. For years I’ve tried to hold on to every version of Father Roderick that ever existed. The Star Wars enthusiast. The television presenter. The priest. The podcaster. The documentary maker. The YouTuber. The writer. I kept wondering whether I should still be all of those things at once. Lately I’ve begun to suspect that the question itself is wrong. Finding my place Last weekend I spent a day at a small fantasy festival, recording interviews for my new Dutch podcast, Fantasyfans.nl. It was a much smaller event than Castlefest, which made it possible to have real conversations with artists, writers and visitors. What struck me most wasn’t the costumes or the music. It was the kindness. Again and again I met people eager to encourage each other, share their creativity and celebrate each other’s stories. I came home with hours of interviews, but also with a growing conviction that this community is exactly where I need to be right now. Not because everyone thinks the same way, quite the opposite. It’s because I can simply show up as myself: a priest who loves stories. A storyteller who happens to be a priest. Letting go of old roles That has also made me think about the things I’m slowly letting go of. This week I started clearing out one of the cupboards in my office. It was filled with microphones, cameras, old phones and equipment I bought for projects I once imagined I would make. I realised I wasn’t really sorting electronics. I was sorting through old versions of myself. Some of those dreams were worth pursuing because they brought me exactly where I am today. Others have simply run their course. Keeping hold of them doesn’t honour the past. It only clutters the present. The same is true for the roles we assign ourselves. There comes a moment when you have to stop asking, “Who am I supposed to be?” and start asking, “Who has God actually made me to be?” Trusting the journey That question has made returning to my fantasy novel much easier. I’m no longer trying to become “an author” as quickly as possible. I’m simply writing the story that has been growing inside me for years. The same goes for podcasting, for building this new fantasy community, and for everything else that currently fills my days. I don’t need to keep proving that I can still do everything I used to do. I only need to be faithful to the work I’ve been given today. Perhaps that’s what vocation looks like: not becoming someone else. But gradually becoming more fully yourself. Fr. Roderick VonhögenP.S. This week's newsletter is based on the latest episode of The Walk. You can listen to it by pressing play on the audio player at the top of the page. Fantasyfans.nl update A warm welcome if you recently discovered this newsletter through Fantasyfans.nl! Last weekend I recorded the latest episode of the podcast live at the Evermore Fantasy Festival. It turned into a wonderful collection of conversations with artists, writers, cosplayers and fantasy fans about creativity, community and why these festivals feel like coming home for so many people. 🎙️ You can listen to the live festival episode (in Dutch) here: Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
September 6 · 57 min
Back in Medieval Ireland
Home again Every weekday morning this week, I’ve found myself back in early medieval Ireland. The morning mist still hangs over the valley as monks make their way across the monastery grounds. The bell has just called the community to prayer. In the scriptorium, novices bend over their desks, learning to shape letters and illuminate manuscripts. Outside the walls, old legends are stirring, and somewhere in the distance a young novice is about to stumble into a story much bigger than he could ever imagine. Then I look up from my laptop. For the first time in months, I’m genuinely looking forward to sitting down every morning to rewrite my first fantasy novel. Not because I’m making spectacular progress. Quite the opposite. Some mornings I rewrite a single page. Others I don’t write anything at all. Instead, I listen back to old voice notes, rethink the history of a monastery or spend an hour trying to understand one of my characters a little better. And I’m having the time of my life. Exploring instead of producing Only a few weeks ago, this felt completely different. Rewriting the novel had become a mountain I kept avoiding to climb. Every new story idea seemed more exciting than returning to the manuscript I’d already written. I felt guilty about that, convinced I simply needed more discipline. Now I think something else was going on… Last week I wrote about letting go of the imaginary version of myself who always had enough time to do everything. Once I stopped measuring myself against that impossible person, something unexpected happened. The pressure disappeared. I no longer felt I had to prove I could write a novel, I could simply take the time to learn how to write one. And that tiny shift changed everything. Instead of trying to produce pages as quickly as possible, I’ve started treating these mornings as an opportunity to explore. Sometimes I end up reading about medieval pigments. Or I draw a map of the monastery grounds. Sometimes I realise an entire chapter needs to happen somewhere else. None of that feels like wasted time anymore. It’s part of building a world I’d actually want to visit myself. Becoming a storyteller As I mentioned last week, Tolkien once described writers as sub-creators. I’ve always loved that expression. We don’t create out of nothing. We receive the world as a gift, then patiently shape it into stories of our own. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been rediscovering this week: writing isn’t simply producing words… It’s learning to see. Learning to listen. Learning to inhabit a world until it begins to feel real enough for someone else to step inside. Will it take longer to finish this novel than I’d hoped a year ago? Almost certainly. But that no longer bothers me. Because every morning I return to medieval Ireland, I leave my desk with something much more valuable than another completed chapter. I close my laptop with the feeling that, little by little, I’m becoming the writer this story has needed all along. Fr. Roderick Vonhögen P.S.: This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you’d rather hear the story in my own voice, you’ll find the podcast player at the top of this page. Fantasyfans.nl update It’s been exciting to watch my new Dutch fantasy podcast and community slowly find its audience. Just over a month after launching, Fantasyfans.nl has grown to around 350 Instagram followers, while the Facebook and YouTube communities are steadily growing as well. What I enjoy most, though, is the interaction. Every week I record a community podcast, and it’s wonderful to see the discussions continue long after the microphones have been switched off. Last week I published an interview with fantasy author G.J.G. Klaassen, whom I quite literally bumped into while walking the Four Day Marches of Nijmegen. We talked about his debut novel, writing fantasy and finding inspiration in unexpected places. You can read or listen to the interview here. This weekend I also spent a day at the Evermore Fantasy Festival in Ede, where I recorded a new community podcast and spoke with visitors, authors and creators. I’m editing those conversations now, along with plenty of photos from the festival, and I’ll start sharing them later this week. If you’re curious about the Dutch fantasy community, keep an eye on Fantasyfans.nl! Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
August 30 · 1 hr 2 min
The Version of Me That Doesn't Exist
A decluttering expert said something this week that I haven't been able to get out of my head.We often buy things not for the person we are today, but for the person we hope to become. Running shoes for the future athlete. A bread machine for the baker who’s definitely going to make fresh sourdough every weekend. An expensive sketchbook for the artist who’s just waiting for the right moment to begin. As I looked around my own house, I realised I’d been doing exactly the same thing. Not just with possessions. With my life. For years I’d been making plans for someone who always seemed just around the corner. He somehow had enough time to keep half a dozen YouTube channels alive, maintain every hobby he’d ever enjoyed, answer every email the day it arrived, write books at remarkable speed and still have time left over for everything else. The strange thing is that I’d started measuring myself against him. No wonder I always felt behind. Learning the craft That realisation changed the way I looked at almost everything. I no longer felt guilty about projects that no longer fit the life I’m actually living. I stopped worrying that I wasn’t moving fast enough. Even my fantasy novel began to look different. Instead of asking why it still wasn’t finished, I found myself enjoying the slow process of becoming the writer who can tell this story well. That reminded me of one of Tolkien’s favourite ideas. He described artists and storytellers as sub-creators. God alone creates from nothing. We receive creation as a gift and shape it through imagination, craftsmanship and patience. I’ve always loved that image because it shifts the focus away from producing something as quickly as possible. Craft isn’t measured by speed. It’s measured by the care you bring to it. Perhaps that’s why I find so much joy these days in things that don’t seem particularly efficient. Painting medieval-style creatures in watercolor. Recording conversations with fantasy authors. Walking through the woods until a new idea appears. None of those activities produces a finished novel by the end of the day. Yet all of them are teaching me something about storytelling. The real Father Roderick That person I kept trying to become doesn’t exist. Oddly enough, admitting that felt liberating rather than disappointing. It made me ask a much simpler question. Who is the real Father Roderick today? The answer is becoming clearer. I’m a priest. A storyteller. A podcaster. And, increasingly, a writer. That doesn’t mean the earlier chapters of my life were mistakes. They brought me here. But some ambitions no longer fit the person I’ve become, and letting them go creates room for the ones that do. Perhaps that’s why I’m ending this month with far more excitement than I expected. I haven’t finished my novel. I haven’t crossed a major milestone. What I have done is something that may turn out to be far more valuable. I’ve stopped chasing the person I imagined I could become. I’m beginning to pay attention to the person God is inviting me to be. And that feels like the best possible place to begin the next chapter. Fr. Roderick Vonhögen P.S.: This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you’d rather hear the story in my own voice, you’ll find the podcast player at the top of this page. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
August 23 · 1 hr 10 min
The Story Underneath the Story
This week I finally began preparing the rewrite of my novel. Over the past year I’ve recorded hundreds of voice notes whenever an idea appeared, while walking through the woods, riding my bike or making dinner. Most of them last less than a minute. A better ending to a scene. A new character. A monastery that suddenly belongs on a cliff instead of in a valley. My plan was simply to transcribe them, organise them into a story bible and finally start writing. Instead, I spent an afternoon listening to my own thoughts, and as the notes piled up on my screen, I realised they weren’t really about medieval Ireland or even the mechanics of the magic system. Almost every idea circled back to the same question: what does creativity actually do? This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. That question led me to the medieval monks who inspired much of my story. They weren’t merely copying manuscripts. Through words, images and craftsmanship they shaped the imagination of the people around them. It reminded me of Tolkien’s description of artists as sub-creators. God alone creates from nothing. We receive creation as a gift and, through imagination and skill, participate in it. Suddenly I understood that this had become the foundation of my novel. The magic isn’t really about extraordinary powers. It’s about the mysterious way stories, beauty and imagination can change people and, through them, the world. Perhaps that’s also why rewriting this book has become so important to me. For months I’d measured my progress in chapters, deadlines and word counts. Sitting there with those voice notes, I realised I’d been measuring the wrong thing. The novel isn’t only teaching me how to tell a better story. It’s teaching me how to become a better storyteller. Every rewrite, every conversation with another author, every sketch in my notebook and every documentary I make is part of that same apprenticeship. I still hope that one day I’ll hold this novel in my hands. But when that day comes, I suspect the greatest gift won’t be the finished book. It will be the journey of becoming the person who was able to write it. Fr. Roderick Vonhögen P.S.: This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you’d rather hear the story in my own voice, you’ll find the podcast player at the top of this page. News updates: I’ve started painting again for the first time in more than thirty years. Inspired by medieval manuscripts, I’m creating a small bestiary of strange and mythical creatures in watercolor. It’s still very much an experiment, but several of the illustrations have already sparked ideas for new stories. My new Dutch fantasy podcast, Fantasyfans, is also beginning to find its audience. This weekend I recorded a series of interviews at a small outdoor fantasy and board game fair. One of my favorite parts of these events is discovering how generous creative people are when they start talking about their work. Every conversation leaves me with fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm for my own writing. That theme continued in another way this week, when I joined fantasy author Sandy Butchers on her podcast for a conversation about creativity, geek culture and why we tell stories in the first place. It was a joy to switch from interviewer to guest for a change. If you’d like to listen, you can find the episode here: Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
August 12 · 1 hr 5 min
The Eclipse That Measured My Life
When a partial solar eclipse became visible across Europe this week, I grabbed the most sophisticated piece of scientific equipment I own. A kitchen colander. I’d read that the tiny holes work like a pinhole camera, projecting dozens of miniature eclipses onto a sheet of white paper. It sounded just improbable enough to be worth trying. So I packed the colander in my backpack, walked to the open fields outside my village, and joined hundreds of other people who had gathered to watch the sky. Some had brought telescopes. Others carried homemade viewing boxes or expensive camera gear. A few generous souls let curious strangers peer through their eclipse glasses. Children pointed excitedly at the strange crescent-shaped shadows beneath the trees, while amateur photographers compared lenses and filters. For a brief moment, complete strangers became companions, united by the simple fact that something remarkable was happening overhead. My humble colander turned out to work perfectly. More Than an Eclipse The last time I witnessed a solar eclipse was more than twenty-five years ago. As I stood there watching the Moon slowly uncover the Sun again, I realised how much life had happened between those two afternoons. Back then I had only recently been ordained. Podcasting barely existed. Smartphones belonged to science fiction. I hadn’t studied in Rome yet. I hadn’t experienced burnout. I hadn’t spent years making television documentaries, walked the Camino de Santiago or started writing novels. Standing in that same sunlight, I wasn’t just watching an eclipse. I was looking across almost three decades of my own life. It’s strange how time works. Twenty-five years ago feels almost like yesterday. Yet when I imagine another twenty-five years stretching ahead, it suddenly seems like an impossibly long road. Our memories compress time. The future, meanwhile, always feels endless, until one day you realise it isn’t. What Actually Lasts That thought lingered with me as I walked home. People often worry about the legacy they’ll leave behind. Buildings. Careers. Collections. Recognition. History suggests those things don’t last very long. One of the advantages of having studied in Rome is that you spend your days surrounded by the remains of people who once believed their empires would last forever. Today, even the mightiest monuments are incomplete. Stones have been reused. Statues have crumbled. Names have faded. Perhaps that’s why I don’t find much comfort in the idea of leaving something behind. What matters far more to me are the moments that quietly shape a life. An afternoon spent filming a documentary. A conversation with a stranger. A walk through the woods. Or standing in a field with hundreds of people, all looking up at the same sky. Those are the moments that stay with us long after the photographs have disappeared into forgotten hard drives. As the sunlight slowly returned to normal, everyone packed away their cameras, folded up their picnic chairs and cycled home. I put the colander back in my backpack. I won’t need it to watch solar eclipses anymore. The next deep partial eclipse in my country will be in 2081. But I’ll keep it anyway. Maybe not for the next eclipse. Just for draining my pasta. This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you’d rather hear the story in my own voice, you’ll find the podcast player at the top of this page. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
August 6 · 1 hr 6 min
I Didn't Expect to Fall in Love Again
On Sunday afternoon at the Castlefest fantasy festival, I made a last-minute decision. I’d already spent the previous day interviewing authors for my new Dutch podcast, Fantasyfans.nl. Instead of recording more conversations, I decided to spend the rest of the festival making a short documentary. There was no camera crew, no script and no elaborate equipment. Just my iPhone and a rough idea of the story I wanted to tell. I wandered through the castle grounds, talking to visitors about the stories behind their costumes, interviewing artists and following whatever caught my attention. By the time I boarded the train home, I couldn’t stop smiling. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. An Old Craft It took me a while to understand why. Long before writing became such a big part of my life, I spent seventeen years making television documentaries. I eventually learned to do almost everything myself, from finding stories and conducting interviews to filming and editing. The first documentary I ever made was awful. I made every mistake a beginner could make. After spending the better part of a week trying to rescue the edit, I finally asked one of our experienced editors to have a look. He watched the footage for a few minutes, suggested a different structure and suddenly everything fell into place. It wasn’t that I had filmed the wrong material. I simply didn’t yet know how to shape it into a story. That afternoon at Castlefest brought all of that back. As soon as I started filming, it felt familiar. I instinctively knew who to approach, which questions to ask and how to collect the pieces I’d need later in the editing room. It reminded me that seventeen years of practice don’t simply disappear because you spend a few years doing other things. The Next Chapter On the train home, another thought crossed my mind. Writing my first fantasy novel feels remarkably similar to making that first documentary all those years ago. The story is there. So is the enthusiasm. What I’m still developing is the craft. Over the past year I’ve interviewed dozens of fantasy authors for the new podcast, and every conversation has taught me something. We talk about worldbuilding, rewriting, publishing and all the invisible work that goes into finishing a book. I often leave those interviews with pages of notes, not because I plan to imitate anyone else’s way of writing, but because it’s reassuring to hear how every author has learned their craft one book at a time. That’s exactly what Castlefest reminded me of. For one afternoon I stepped back into a profession that once felt impossibly difficult. It no longer does. Years of practice have taken care of that. Perhaps writing works the same way. Right now, I’m wrestling with the first rewrite of my novel, trying to solve problems that seem enormous. Maybe, years from now, I’ll look back at this manuscript the way I now look back at that first documentary. Not with embarrassment because I was still learning, but with gratitude that I had the courage to begin. And perhaps that’s what I really fell in love with all over again. Not documentary making or writing. But the joy of discovering that every hour you invest in a craft makes the next story a little better. Fr. Roderick Vonhögen From My Desk * This article is based on the latest episode of The Walk. If you’d like to hear the story as I originally told it, simply press play on the podcast player at the top of this page. * Curious about the documentary I mention in the article? I’ve started sharing a few behind-the-scenes photos and video clips on Instagram and Facebook. I’ll post updates there as the project comes together. * Work on my Camino book continues, although at a slightly slower pace than I’d originally planned. August is also dedicated to rewriting my first fantasy novel, and I’d rather make steady progress on both projects than rush either of them. * If you speak Dutch, you might enjoy my new podcast Fantasyfans, featuring conversations with fantasy authors, artists and cosplayers. Recent guests include Sandy Butchers, Pepijn Hamer, Cocky van Dijk, Charlotte de Winter and Arlieke van Remmerden. You can find all the episodes and articles at fantasyfans.nl. * Meanwhile, my daily Camino series continues in my Dutch podcast Heilige van de Dag, following my pilgrimage to Santiago one saint at a time until the end of August. Earlier this week I also joined a Dutch radio program to talk about the series, and you can listen to that interview here. * One final thing: I’m hoping to resume my live Q&A sessions on YouTube and Substack later this month. I miss talking with you in real time, so keep an eye on my social media channels for dates and announcements. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
July 31 · 47 min
Too Many Good Ideas
Every creative life has one problem that success doesn’t solve. Sometimes it actually makes it worse. Earlier this week, I found myself looking at my calendar with a growing sense of unease. It should have been a quiet week. After walking two hundred kilometres during the Nijmegen Four Days Marches, I’d planned to recover before beginning the next phase of my fantasy novel. Instead, my schedule filled itself almost overnight. Interviews in three cathedrals. Editing another series of podcasts. Publishing a few articles. Parish work. A radio interview about my Dutch podcast. And then, almost at the last minute, an invitation to Castlefest as a member of the press, my favorite fantasy festival of the year. The sensible thing would have been to stay home. Instead, I immediately started looking for my recording gear. That’s the problem with work you genuinely enjoy. It rarely feels like work. I love interviewing authors and exploring old churches. I love telling stories about saints and meeting people who care about fantasy as much as I do. Every invitation sounds like an opportunity I shouldn’t miss. Yet somewhere along the way I realised that I was measuring success by everything I managed to fit into a week, while the project that matters most, writing my own books, kept waiting patiently for “when things calm down.” They never do. Earlier this year, I made a public promise that I wanted to publish eight books this year (most of them already exist as drafts). It’s an absurdly ambitious goal, and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. But I know myself well enough to understand why I set it. The number isn’t really the point. It’s a reminder of the person I’m trying to become. You don’t become a writer by thinking about books. You become a writer by protecting the time to write them. That means saying no, not only to bad ideas, but sometimes to wonderful ones as well. So this August I’m trying something different. One chapter a day. That’s all. Not the perfect chapter, just the next one. Everything else will go on hold. Cathedrals will still be there. Festivals will return next summer. New opportunities always appear. Stories, on the other hand, only exist if someone sits down and writes them. For the next month, I want that someone to be me. This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you'd rather hear the story in my own voice, you'll find the podcast player at the top of this page. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
July 26 · 1 hr 17 min
For Four Days, the World Felt Different
For four days, I walked fifty kilometres a day. I came home with sore feet, very little sleep, and a renewed faith in people. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. By Friday afternoon, every step hurt. After four days of walking fifty kilometers a day during the Nijmegen Four Days Marches—the world’s largest multi-day walking event—I had reached the point where my feet objected to almost every surface. The next morning, the short walk to the supermarket felt harder than some of the longest stretches during the event itself. Yet that isn't what I remember most. What stays with me are the people. Every village seemed determined to keep forty-five thousand walkers moving. Children stood along the road handing out cucumber slices, cookies and sweets. Churches served us free coffee. Complete strangers applauded as we passed, as if finishing the walk mattered just as much to them as it did to us. Along the route I kept running into familiar faces. Friends from the fantasy community. People I’d interviewed years ago. Listeners who recognized me from my podcasts or from my social media posts. Even the Klingon cosplayer I'd once posed with at Comic Con somehow appeared among the crowds. With tens of thousands of participants, none of those meetings should have happened. Yet they kept happening. Walking fifty kilometres together has an interesting effect on people. Conversation becomes easier. Pretence disappears somewhere around the thirty-kilometer mark. You talk about books, life, work and dreams simply because there's nothing else to do except keep putting one foot in front of the other. I spent much of the week with friends who are organizing a new fantasy festival. We talked about storytelling, community and why so many people feel at home in worlds filled with elves, dwarves and dragons. By the end of the week I found myself sketching the mythology behind their festival in my notebook. Apparently, sore feet don't stop the imagination from wandering. On the final day, someone said something I’ve heard after almost every fantasy convention I’ve ever attended: “I wish the real world were more like this.” I understood exactly what she meant. But perhaps we’ve got it the wrong way round. Maybe this is the real world. A place where strangers encourage one another, where generosity is the default, where differences matter less than the simple fact that we’re all traveling the same road. The news rarely reports on that version of humanity. But it's there. Sometimes you just have to put on your walking shoes before you notice it. This article is based on the latest episode of my podcast The Walk. If you'd rather hear the story in my own voice, you'll find the podcast player at the top of this page. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
July 15 · 1 hr 2 min
The Camino Didn't End in Santiago
When I arrived in Santiago de Compostela two months ago, I assumed the journey was over. I’d recorded forty podcast episodes along the way, filled my phone with hundreds of photos, and written a short diary entry every evening before going to bed. Surely that would be enough to remember what had happened. This month I’ve started turning those memories into a book. Every morning I open my Camino diary, replay one of the podcast episodes I recorded on the trail, and begin writing. Almost immediately, something unexpected happens. A single photograph reminds me of a conversation I’d forgotten. A village on Google Street View brings back the smell of wet earth after an early morning rain. I find myself remembering details I never consciously stored away, as if they had simply been waiting for someone to ask the right question. The biggest surprise is that I’m not just recovering memories. I’m discovering meaning. While I was walking, most days were wonderfully ordinary. Walk, eat, meet people, find a place to sleep, repeat. Only now, with a little distance, do I begin to notice how those encounters belong together. A conversation in the morning sheds light on a visit to a tiny church hours later. The story of a saint suddenly explains why a particular moment stayed with me. None of that was obvious at the time. Apparently, experiences need room to breathe before they reveal what they were trying to say. Perhaps that’s true of more than pilgrimages. We often expect life’s important moments to announce themselves while they’re happening. In reality, they tend to whisper long after we’ve returned home. Looking back isn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia. Sometimes it’s the first time we truly understand where we’ve been. That’s why, in a strange way, I no longer feel that I’m writing about the Camino. I’m still walking it. Listen to the podcast This article grew out of this week’s episode of my podcast The Walk. You can listen by tapping the play button in the podcast player at the top of this post. Help Me Write This Book For the next few weeks, I’m publishing a new chapter of Saints on the Camino every weekday on my Substack. You’re reading the book as I’m writing it. Before I send the manuscript to a professional editor, I’d love your help. If you notice an awkward sentence, a typo, or simply have a suggestion that would make a chapter stronger, please leave a comment. Your feedback will help shape the final version. You can start at the beginning or jump to any chapter using the table of contents. → Read the book in progress Thanks in advance!Father Roderick Vonhögen Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
July 8 · 1 hr
Learning to Stop
On Monday evening, I finally uploaded the first chapter of my Camino book. By the time I’d published the accompanying newsletter and shared it online, it was already half past ten. I stared at the clock with mixed feelings. Not because the chapter had taken longer than expected, but because I’d broken a promise to myself. For months I’d been trying to stop working at five in the afternoon. That simple habit had transformed my days. I slept better, woke up with more energy, and actually looked forward to sitting down at my desk each morning. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The irony was that nothing had gone wrong. Quite the opposite. The book had finally found its voice. I had set out to write a guide to the saints along the Camino de Santiago, but somewhere in the first chapter it became something else. Instead of describing churches and biographies, I found myself back on the trail, meeting fellow pilgrims again, hearing the church bells of small Spanish villages, and rediscovering the conversations that had shaped my own pilgrimage. Every chapter opened the door to another memory, and before I knew it, I wanted to keep writing long after dinner. Only a few weeks ago, I couldn’t persuade myself to work on my novel. Now I had the opposite problem. The words kept coming, and I didn’t want to interrupt them. It’s a much nicer problem to have, but it carries its own danger. I’ve learned often enough that enthusiasm can be just as exhausting as procrastination. Creative work isn’t only about finding momentum. It’s also about protecting it. So this week I’m trying something that feels almost unnatural. When five o’clock arrives, I’ll turn off the computer, even if the next paragraph is already forming in my head. I’d rather leave something unwritten today than discover, a few weeks from now, that I’ve exhausted the very excitement that made me want to write in the first place. The Camino taught me that long journeys are completed one day at a time. Perhaps writing books works the same way. 🎧 I talk about this and more in this week’s episode of my podcast ‘The Walk’. You can listen via the player at the top of this page. 👉 Read the fist chapters of my book about the Camino here: Saints on the Camino. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
July 1 · 1 hr 2 min
Time Traveling Through Ireland and Scotland
This morning, I found myself back in Ireland on top of a cliff at the end of the Pilgrim’s Path in County Donegal. A little later I wandered through the Scottish Highlands near Ullapool. By the afternoon I was standing inside a medieval chapel in Brittany, listening to the echoes of footsteps from years ago. And yet, I never left my home. In fact, only a day earlier I’d decided that I wasn’t going anywhere this summer. For weeks I’d been trying to convince myself that I should return to Ireland. The Nijmegen Four Days Marches are coming up, and a week of hiking through the Irish countryside seemed like perfect training. I also wanted to record a new series of podcast episodes about Celtic saints. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t need much of an excuse to go back. Ireland has a habit of making me feel at home. Then my left foot had other ideas. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. While putting on my walking shoes one morning, I felt a sharp pain across the middle of my foot. Nothing dramatic (probably an irritated tendon due to the amount of walking I’ve been doing lately) but enough to make me wonder whether hiking eight hours a day was really such a brilliant plan. After a bit of reading, the advice seemed remarkably consistent. Take it easy. Not exactly the words an enthusiastic walker hopes to hear. For a day or two I kept trying to negotiate with reality. Maybe it would disappear. Maybe I could simply walk through it. Walkers are remarkably good at bargaining with their own bodies. Eventually I admitted that Ireland would have to wait. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel disappointed for very long. That afternoon I connected an old external hard drive to my computer. Back in time The drive was full of video footage I’d almost forgotten about. Ireland. Scotland. Brittany. Hours upon hours of walks through ruined monasteries, tiny churches and windswept landscapes. I started opening folders almost at random, curious to see what my younger self had been filming all those years ago. I was surprised by what I found. Long before I ever started my daily podcast about the saints, I was already stopping in front of ancient statues and forgotten chapels, trying to tell their stories. Apparently I’ve been preparing for this project for years without realising it. I even found clips that I’d filmed twice, once in Dutch and once in English, because at the time I imagined turning them into a television series. That television series never happened. Life took a different direction. But as I watched those old recordings, a new idea began to emerge. Looking forward by looking back I asked myself if I really needed to travel back to Ireland right now? Or had I already brought home everything I needed? Instead of rushing to book flights and hostels, I could revisit those journeys from my desk. I could combine the old recordings with new narration and tell the stories I hadn’t yet found the time to tell. In a way, it felt like walking those roads again. Only this time I could slow down. There’s something strangely comforting about discovering that not every creative project has to begin with something new. Sometimes you’ve already done half the work years earlier, without knowing where it would eventually lead. I’m beginning to suspect that creativity isn’t only about collecting new experiences. It’s also about recognising the value of experiences you’ve been carrying with you all along. The right journey So Ireland is staying exactly where it is. The hills will still be there in autumn. The monasteries aren’t going anywhere. And perhaps my foot will be a little happier by then as well. In the meantime, I have plenty of stories waiting to be rediscovered. Not only on that hard drive, but also in the growing stack of interviews with fantasy authors, in the pages of my unfinished novel, and in the recordings I made only this week inside a museum filled with centuries of Christian history. It’s funny: I thought I was postponing a journey. Instead, I seem to have found another one. Maybe Doc Brown was right. Sometimes you really don’t need roads. Listen to the Podcast This article grew out of this week’s episode of my podcast The Walk. You can listen by tapping the play button in the podcast player at the top of this post. Quick updates * This week, my Dutch podcast about the saints follows the route of the Nijmegen Four Days Marches, which begins in just a few weeks. Along the way, we explore the remarkable stories of the saints who have shaped this region for centuries. If you understand Dutch, you can listen to the series here. * Next week, the podcast heads to Spain. Throughout July and August, I’ll be taking listeners along the Camino de Santiago in a 40 part series, sharing the stories of the saints, churches and unexpected encounters I experienced along the pilgrimage. * Behind the scenes, I’m migrating my website and podcasts to a new hosting provider. It’s mostly technical housekeeping and shouldn’t affect listeners, readers or supporters. My hope is simply to make everything a bit more sustainable for the future. * I’m also working on two new podcast projects. One is a soft reboot of The Break, exploring the deeper layers of films, television series and other stories. The other is a Dutch podcast for fantasy readers, featuring conversations with some of my favourite authors. More on both very soon. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
June 26 · 49 min
What the Camino Taught Me About Writing
In this episode I record during a historic Dutch heatwave, on a day officially marked as code red. I talk about waking up at five to cool the house, improvising sun‑blocking with bedsheets, and trying to adapt to temperatures that feel increasingly normal in a changing climate. I explain why I cancelled a planned storytelling workshop for seminarians, even though the topic is close to my heart. Instead, I stay home and continue editing the Camino saints series, reflecting on how much I enjoy spontaneous, on‑location storytelling and how these recordings remind me of my early podcasting days. As I walk, I think aloud about the tension between creative energy and ADHD. New ideas give me momentum, while editing drains it. A helpful insight emerges: instead of “editing” my first novel, I can retell it with everything I’ve learned over the past year. That shift in mindset makes the work feel possible again. I also talk about the frustrations of working within a broadcast organization where I have no control over promotion, and why Substack feels like a better home for building a community around my work. A lunch‑walk story about “a man who wanted to take his horse to heaven” reminds me how essential walking and play are to my creativity, and sparks the idea of sharing daily short stories as a way to reach readers. The episode ends with a reflection on focus, choices, and the need to protect creative space — especially on a day when simply surviving the heat already feels like a full‑time job. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
June 21 · 59 min
The Walk - The Joy of Missing Out
This week I take an evening walk through the woods during a heatwave and reflect on a surprising decision: skipping one of my favorite events of the year. Comic Con Holland was happening just down the road. Friends were there. Authors I admire were there. Under normal circumstances, I would have spent the entire weekend interviewing writers, meeting readers, and soaking up inspiration. Instead, I stayed home. In this episode I talk about why I made that choice, how the fear of missing out can quietly undermine focus, and what I'm learning about protecting my energy and attention so I can return to the work that matters most. I also share updates on my summer plans, my struggle to catch up with podcast production after the Camino, and my ongoing efforts to create a more sustainable rhythm for writing and creative work. Along the way, I reflect on two stories that unexpectedly inspired me this weekend: the emotional finale of Young Sheldon and the animated film Transformers One. Both reminded me why storytelling matters and challenged me to bring more emotional depth to my own novels. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
June 16 · 1 hr
The Walk - The Question That Changed My Week
This week I'm reflecting on something that many creative people struggle with: what happens when motivation disappears. After several busy weeks filled with podcast production, events, travel, administration, and a growing backlog of unfinished tasks, I found myself dealing with fatigue, brain fog, and procrastination. Instead of trying to push harder, I decided to take a closer look at what was really going on. In this episode I talk about the importance of rhythm, the hidden cost of open loops, why journaling helps me make sense of difficult periods, and how I've learned to replace self-criticism with curiosity. I also share updates on several creative projects, including the upcoming Four Days Marches saints series, the Camino podcasts, plans for a book about the saints of the Camino, and my ongoing struggle between chasing exciting new ideas and finishing the stories I've already started. Topics in this episode: • Recovering from mental and physical fatigue• Brain fog, procrastination, and creative work• The value of journaling and self-reflection• Preparing a special saints series for the Four Days Marches• Writing plans for the Saints of the Camino book• Revisiting the Story Mages novel rewrite• Why Ireland keeps calling me back as a writer and pilgrim As always, thank you for walking with me. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
June 3 · 1 hr 2 min
The Walk - Momentum Before Motivation
For a long time, I thought that progress depended on inspiration. If only I felt more motivated. If only I had more energy. If only I could find a few uninterrupted days to focus on the things that matter most. But the older I get, the more I discover that meaningful work is rarely built on inspiration alone. It's built on small routines, simple habits, and the willingness to take the next step even when you don't feel like it. In this week's episode of my podcast 'The Walk', I reflect on that lesson while preparing a new batch of podcasts, working on a book about the saints of the Camino, and getting ready to finally rewrite the fantasy novel I've been developing since last year. Along the way, I share some of the practical tricks that help me deal with overwhelm, procrastination, clutter, and the endless stream of creative ideas that compete for attention. Not because I've mastered any of these things, but because I'm still learning them myself. The surprising discovery is that the same principles seem to work everywhere. Writing a novel. Cleaning a kitchen. Reading more books. Building a healthier life. In every case, success rarely comes from giant leaps. It comes from creating a little space, taking one small action, and trusting that momentum will follow. Often all you need to do is to take the next step. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
May 28 · 1 hr 2 min
The Walk - What Happens When You Challenge Your Own Beliefs?
For most of us, it happens without us noticing. Our world slowly becomes smaller. The people we follow think like us. The news we read confirms what we already believe. The conversations we have rarely challenge our assumptions. Social media is especially good at creating that kind of comfortable bubble. In this week's episode of my podcast The Walk, I found myself reflecting on what happens when we deliberately step outside of it. The thought started with the stories of the saints that I've been recording these past weeks. Again and again, I encounter people who leave the safety of their familiar world. Princes who choose poverty. Scholars who engage with people who disagree with them. Men and women who cross cultural boundaries because they care more about truth and compassion than comfort. That same pattern has shaped my own life in unexpected ways. Whether it's attending fantasy festivals, talking to people with very different beliefs, or listening to those who are questioning and even leaving the faith traditions they grew up in, I've discovered that curiosity is often far more valuable than certainty. In this episode, I reflect on faith, deconstruction, critical thinking, the algorithms that shape our online lives, and why I believe genuine growth often begins when we're willing to ask uncomfortable questions. Not because questioning automatically destroys belief. Sometimes it deepens it. And sometimes it helps us let go of things that were never really faith in the first place. It's a personal and wide-ranging conversation about saints, storytelling, empathy, doubt, and why keeping an open mind may be one of the most important spiritual disciplines of our time. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
May 21 · 54 min
The Walk - The Pressure That Finally Caught Up With Me
Last week I found myself doing something I haven’t done in a long time. Instead of working on the mountain of deadlines waiting for me, I disappeared into video games for three days straight. On paper, that made no sense at all. I had twenty-two podcast episodes still to produce, unanswered emails, financial administration, requests for future talks, parish work, and a head full of open loops. The more pressure I felt, the more impossible it became to sit down and actually start. So instead of writing scripts, I escaped into the deserts of Arrakis and the forests of Viking survival games. At first I felt guilty about it. But slowly I started to realize something important: maybe this wasn’t laziness at all. Maybe it was my system trying to recover. In this episode, I reflect on something I’m only now beginning to understand about myself. The moment life becomes too externally driven, too full of expectations and obligations, I freeze. Not because I don’t care. Quite the opposite. The pressure becomes so loud that my brain starts looking for predictable worlds where nothing is demanded of me anymore. What surprised me most is that the solution did not come from forcing myself back to work. It came from sleep, walking, journaling, and creating enough mental space to calm the noise in my head. I also talk about a difficult encounter after Mass last Sunday, a moment that stayed with me much longer than I expected, and about how easily we underestimate the emotional cost of always having to “perform” socially, creatively, or spiritually. The deeper theme running through this entire conversation is the tension between external expectations and inner freedom. What happens when your creative life slowly starts to feel like obligation? And how do you protect the part of yourself that needs wonder, recovery, and room to breathe in order to stay alive? This episode became a kind of audio journal about overload, recovery, creativity, and the surprising realization that sometimes the healthiest response to stress is not more discipline, but more stability. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
May 15 · 1 hr 5 min
The Walk - Imagination Is Not Escapism
Some weeks feel like spring sunlight breaking through the trees. Other weeks feel like standing in the hail with your hands in your pockets, wondering why everything suddenly turned cold again. This past week felt like both at the same time. After returning from the Camino, I found myself immediately pulled back into a whirlwind of obligations: parish life, fantasy festivals, interviews, talks, trains that weren’t running, late nights, and a stubborn cold that refused to leave. Somewhere between coughing fits, crowded convention halls and endless cups of tea, I also had to write something that unexpectedly terrified me: a sermon about fantasy. Not a church sermon, at least not really. This was for a fantasy festival held inside a former church in Nijmegen. The organizers had invited me, partly as a priest and partly because I’ve somehow become known in Dutch fantasy circles as “that priest who likes fantasy stories.” And despite years of public speaking, despite television work and podcasts and interviews, I suddenly felt like an impostor. Like I didn’t belong there. Not enough of a writer. Not enough of a fantasy expert. Too religious for one world, too geeky for the other. So naturally, I procrastinated completely. What finally unlocked the entire talk was an unexpected memory of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As a child, that factory looked more like heaven to me than clouds and golden harps ever did. And from there the entire theme suddenly became clear: imagination matters because every meaningful future first exists as a story we dare to tell ourselves. That is why fantasy matters. Not because it helps us escape reality, but because it reminds us that reality is not finished yet. Every creative act begins with imagination. Every hopeful future starts with someone envisioning something better than what currently exists. Children understand this instinctively. Adults often lose it under layers of exhaustion, cynicism and endless bad news. Maybe that is why stories still matter so much to me. Whether it’s Tolkien, Studio Ghibli, the Camino, saints, or the fantasy novels I’m slowly trying to finish. Stories keep alive the part of us that still believes transformation is possible. And maybe that’s also why I needed a few days of rest, video games and long walks in the rain. Not every pause is failure. Sometimes recovery is part of the creative process too. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
May 6 · 46 min
The Walk - Returning to Work After the Camino
Coming home from the Camino felt stranger than I expected. Not because I missed the walking itself, but because I suddenly had to switch back into a life full of deadlines, obligations and screens. After weeks of spending my days outdoors, telling stories while walking through forests and villages in Spain, I found myself sitting behind a desk again, staring at giant research documents and struggling to begin. In this episode of The Walk, I talk about the friction between creativity and pressure. About why some work drains energy while other work gives it back. And about the realization that for me, balance is less about working harder and more about finding a rhythm that actually fits the way I function. I also share how the Camino unexpectedly reshaped my plans for writing, podcasting and building a fantasy storytelling community in both English and Dutch. This walk through the woods became a conversation about overwhelm, delayed gratification, creative identity and the challenge of protecting long-term dreams while daily responsibilities keep demanding attention. And somewhere between the trees, dogs chasing my microphone, and thoughts about fantasy festivals and unfinished novels, I slowly started to see a clearer path forward again. Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe
April 29 · 1 hr 9 min
The Walk - What the Camino Taught Me
I didn’t expect the hardest part of the Camino to come after I got home. A week after arriving in Santiago de Compostela, I found myself walking again, this time through familiar surroundings. Same blue sky. Same rhythm. But everything felt… different. During the Camino, life was simple. Walk, observe, create, connect. Back home, all the noise returns. Deadlines, expectations, unfinished work. And yet, something had shifted. The Camino didn’t change my life overnight, it showed me how much had already changed. One of the biggest lessons hit me in a way I couldn’t ignore. When everything aligns, I go into full flow mode. I can walk 50 kilometers, record podcasts, generate ideas, and feel unstoppable. But that same flow hides the cost. I push too far. Ignore signals. Until something forces me to stop. A blister. A pulled muscle. Exhaustion. What surprised me most was this: every time I did stop, everything improved. Clearer thinking. Better creativity. More energy. Rest didn’t slow me down, it made everything better. That’s a lesson I’m still learning. And then there’s something deeper. On the Camino, I let go of control. No strict plans. Just walking until it felt right. Talking to people without an agenda. Trusting that things would work out. And they did. Again and again. Strangers helped me. Problems solved themselves. It sounds simple, almost naive. But living it day after day changes something. It makes you wonder how much of your normal stress is… unnecessary. Maybe the real challenge isn’t walking across Spain. Maybe it’s bringing that same trust, that same openness, back into ordinary life. View my daily Camino Journal (with lots of photos) on Polarsteps: https://www.polarsteps.com/FatherRoderick/24866392-camino-frances Get full access to Father Roderick at fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe

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