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.
The Walk
Claim This Podcastby Fr. Roderick Vonhögen
5.0(1 reviews)
380 episodes
Updated Weekly
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Podcast Overview
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.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
12/28/2016
1 verified contact email on file for The Walk
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Recent Episodes
May 21, 2026
The Walk - The Pressure That Finally Caught Up With Me
<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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?</p> <p>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.</p>
May 15, 2026
The Walk
<p>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.</p> <p>This past week felt like both at the same time.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>So naturally, I procrastinated completely.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>That is why fantasy matters.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>And maybe that’s also why I needed a few days of rest, video games and long walks in the rain.</p> <p>Not every pause is failure.</p> <p>Sometimes recovery is part of the creative process too.</p>
May 6, 2026
The Walk - Returning to Work After the Camino
<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>
380 total episodes available
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Frequently asked questions
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- What is The Walk?
- How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates weekly.
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This podcast is available on 7 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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