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

Resurrection and Proclamation

I preached yesterday. Briercrest Seminary has its chapel every Thursday, and they invited me to share the Word. It was a real blessing for me: lots of people said encouraging things afterwards; edifying conversations about the text I'd chosen continued over lunch; people responded.

So I have absolutely no idea why I came home feeling kinda dejected.

There's no reason for it at all. Except that preaching is this profoundly paradoxical endeavor that can leave you emotionally energized and emotionally drained, spiritually blessed and spiritually broken, intellectually stimulated and intellectually wrung-dry, all at once. I read this preacher once (think it was William Willimon), who said something like: No one who has really felt what it is to preach the word of God will ever feel like they've really done it.

And that says it for me.

I've shared different thoughts about the nature of preaching over the last few months (like here or here). Reflecting back over yesterday, I'm wondering again: what is it that makes preaching preaching? What separates this speech-act from other kinds of public oration-- lectures, speeches, philosophical pontification, dramatic performance?

My friend David talks a lot about the radical assertion made in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), that "The preaching the word of God is the word of God." David likes to point out that what makes preaching preaching is its outrageous conviction that God himself speaks in, through and with the words of the preacher; and unless God does, preaching is one of the silliest of all human activities. That's always been helpful for me (though again it always brings me back to the above quote: No one who has really felt what it is to preach the word of God will ever feel like they've really done it.)

But today I'm remembering another word of advice a friend gave me about preaching. Preaching, he said, must be a public proclamation that depends
fundamentally on the death and resurrection of Jesus to give it meaning. Put differently: would you still say what you're about to say if the cross and the empty grave had never happened? Could you still say it if Jesus was still in his grave? If the answer is yes to that question, then whatever else you're doing-- entertaining, exhorting, educating, moralizing-- whatever else it is, it's not preaching.

I think this is the vital question for the church to ask whenever there's speaking from the pulpit: Does the fact that God raised the crucified Lord from the dead matter at all to these words?

Because we could still tell each other to do more, give more, try harder, be kinder or less stressed or more self-actualized, be better parents or spouses or citizens-- all this even
if Jesus was still dead. We could even still help people understand the historical context, literary conventions and grammatical structure of the biblical text, without needing a really-risen Lord.

But we wouldn't be preaching.

And until our words depend on the proclamation that God raised his crucified Messiah from the dead, and that his risen Life now beats at the heart of all our acts of Christian service, and devotion, and life together-- until our
words hang with bated breath on this reality- we may always go home inexplicably dejected, feeling like we haven't preached.

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