The Walk

<p>For a long time, I thought that progress depended on inspiration.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Often all you need to do is to take the next step.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Father Roderick at <a href="https://fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>For most of us, it happens without us noticing.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>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.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>In this week's episode of my podcast The Walk, I found myself reflecting on what happens when we deliberately step outside of it.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>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.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>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.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>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.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>Not because questioning automatically destroys belief.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>Sometimes it deepens it.</span></p><br/><p class="isSelectedEnd"><span>And sometimes it helps us let go of things that were never really faith in the first place.</span></p><br/><p><span>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.</span></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Father Roderick at <a href="https://fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<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><br/><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><br/><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><br/><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><br/><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> <br/><br/>Get full access to Father Roderick at <a href="https://fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<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><br/><p>This past week felt like both at the same time.</p><br/><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><br/><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><br/><p>So naturally, I procrastinated completely.</p><br/><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><br/><p>That is why fantasy matters.</p><br/><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><br/><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><br/><p>And maybe that’s also why I needed a few days of rest, video games and long walks in the rain.</p><br/><p>Not every pause is failure.</p><br/><p>Sometimes recovery is part of the creative process too.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Father Roderick at <a href="https://fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<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><br/><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><br/><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> <br/><br/>Get full access to Father Roderick at <a href="https://fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">fatherroderick.substack.com/subscribe</a>