I’ve been sitting with this phrase today… every step an arrival.

It’s the subtitle for Eugene Peterson’s Memoir entitled: The Pastor. I read this book for the first time last summer, and am planning to reread it this summer (and probably every summer to come — it’s one of those books).

Peterson credits a poem written by Denise Levertov, in which she gives an account of her development as a poet, for the origin of the phrase. As you might deduce, Peterson now uses it as a way to encapsulate his vocational unfolding as a pastor.

Every step an arrival.

Every step.

An arrival.