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

Where You Hang Your Hat

So: one month, 2741 km, one u-haul with auto transport, 4 jumbo rolls of Saran Wrap, 8 rolls of packing tape, 3 weeks of unpacking and (what feels like) 232 beaurocratic forms later, we're safely settled in Oshawa. As much as you can be after this kind of major life upheaval, we're ready to begin a new chapter, in a new city, in a new province with a new ministry, new church, new neighbours, new home.

As I look back over the last month, with all its crises, decisions, challenges and adventures, it strikes me that moving is one of those rare life-events that really test your spiritual, physical and mental mettle all at once. You get a unique, cringing glimpse of your own character when you're standing at the pay phone for hours on end in a lonely truck stop in Nowhere-ville Northern Ontario, with all your worldly goods loaded into a 1600 cubic foot transport van behind you, with your children wandering the parking lot listlessly, while you try as calmly as you can to arrange some last minute mortgage details that somehow fell through the cracks-- minor details without which you may not have a home waiting for you when you arrive in Oshawa.

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath to begin exploring some new terra incognita with me, let me assure you that I intend to have my blog up to cruising speed again starting next week. But today, still thinking about the character-refining spirituality of moving and all, I'm mulling over some of the Bible verses that seemed to take on new layers of significance during the last month. Without further comment, here's a few that have been running through my heart over the course of this adventure-- a little "U-Haul meets lectio divina" for you:

Matthew 8:19-20: A scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

1 Peter 2:11: Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

Leviticus 14:48-53 (don't ask): If the priest comes to examine [the house] and the mildew has not spread after the house has been plastered, he shall pronounce the house clean, because the mildew is gone. To purify the house he is to take two birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. He shall kill one of the birds over fresh water in a clay pot. Then he is to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn and the live bird, dip them in the blood of the dead bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle the house seven times ... Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields outside the town. In this way he will make atonement for the house and it will be clean.

Mark 10:29-31:
Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

2 comments:

Tyler Lane said...

I'll have to keep that in mind next time I hear of someone with mildew issues....

Eric said...

Glad you got there, and hope you settle in smoothly!