Books by Dale Harris

Books by Dale Harris
A Feast of Epiphanies

Though I Walk, A Novel

Daytime Moons and Other Celestial Anomalies, a book of poems

Second Wind

Second Wind
An album of songs both old and new. Recorded in 2021, a year of major transition for me, these songs explore the many vicissitudes of the spiritual life,. It's about the mountaintop moments and the Holy Saturday sunrises, the doors He opens that no one can close, and those doors He's closed that will never open again. You can click the image above to give it a listen.

The Song Became a Child

The Song Became a Child
A collection of Christmas songs I wrote and recorded during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. Click the image to listen.

There's a Trick of the Light I'm Learning to Do

This is a collection of songs I wrote and recorded in January - March, 2020 while on sabbatical from ministry. They each deal with a different aspect or expression of the Gospel. Click on the image above to listen.

Three Hands Clapping

This is my latest recording project (released May 27, 2019). It is a double album of 22 songs, which very roughly track the story of my life... a sort of musical autobiography, so to speak. Click the album image to listen.

Ghost Notes

Ghost Notes
A collections of original songs I wrote in 2015, and recorded with the FreeWay Musical Collective. Click the album image to listen.

inversions

Recorded in 2014, these songs are sort of a chronicle of my journey through a pastoral burn-out last winter. They deal with themes of mental-health, spiritual burn-out and depression, but also with the inexorable presence of God in the midst of darkness. Click the album art to download.

soundings

soundings
click image to download
"soundings" is a collection of songs I recorded in September/October of 2013. Dealing with themes of hope, ache, trust and spiritual loss, the songs on this album express various facets of my journey with God.

bridges

bridges
Click to download.
"Bridges" is a collection of original songs I wrote in the summer of 2011, during a soul-searching trip I took out to Alberta; a sort of long twilight in the dark night of the soul. I share it here in hopes these musical reflections on my own spiritual journey might be an encouragement to others: the sun does rise, blood-red but beautiful.

echoes

echoes
Prayers, poems and songs (2005-2009). Click to download
"echoes" is a collection of songs I wrote during my time studying at Briercrest Seminary (2004-2009). It's called "echoes" partly because these songs are "echoes" of times spent with God from my songwriting past, but also because there are musical "echoes" of hymns, songs or poems sprinkled throughout the album. Listen closely and you'll hear them.

Accidentals

This collection of mostly blues/rock/folk inspired songs was recorded in the spring and summer of 2015. I call it "accidentals" because all of the songs on this project were tunes I have had kicking around in my notebooks for many years but had never found a "home" for on previous albums. You can click the image to download the whole album.

random reads

An Hysterical Etymology

"Hysteria" comes only a few entries after "hysterectomy" in my dictionary. No mere linguistic coincidence, this. Both words have the same root: from the Greek, hystera, the womb.

Apparently the word "hysterical" comes from the not-too-old fashioned assumption that the womb was a source of weakness, inconstancy and instability in women. Having a womb, it was supposed, made one naturally prone to hysteria; such irrational outbursts and emotional breakdowns were just the inevitable result of the woman's hystera.

Now I've been present at the birth of all three of my children. And I can say with some conviction that, far from being a source of hysteria, the hystera is a source of mysterious strength and emotional endurance. In those three hospital rooms, I watched a woman centred and strong and determined push life out into this world.

No one was hysterical.

But one of the things we're convinced of here at terra incognita is that words always matter. They reflect our realities, but they also shape them. They show us how we see the world, but they also determine how we see the world. And this small word, this "hysteria"-- this flotsam of an androcentric patriarchy-- is no exception. There really was a time in our not-so-distant past when having a womb was considered a liability. An inferiority, really. Made you crazy, if you must know.

I've been sharing some random thoughts on gender and the Faith these days (here, here and here). My deep hope is that as we come to Jesus again and again asking him these kinds of questions, he will faithfully help us see what it really means to be made male and female in the image of God. He'll help us see what it really means to relate as biblical men and women.

But as he does, he will inevitably ask us to name and confess and repent of the barriers to seeing we've erected in our pride, our traditions, our guilt, our suspicion of the other. The kind of exclusive language game that a word like "hysteria" represents, is, I'm convinced, one of those barriers.

May Jesus give his sibling-disciples the courage to see such language games for what they are. And may he give us the courage to repent of the ways our words have driven us apart as men and women, instead of binding us together as the children of God.

1 comments:

Jon Coutts said...

amen.

in one month i will teach a class on this at my church, which has previously avoided such discussion.

your posts are adding to my resolve, without losiing the grace. thanks.