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

The Art of Waiting


This Sunday marks the start of Advent. Despite the fact that we generally jump the gun and make the month leading up to Christmas the season of Cramming-in-as-Many-Christmas-Parties-and-as-Much-Cheer-as-Possible, traditionally Advent is actually meant to emphasize the waiting, not the celebrations. At one time Advent was a season of penance parallel to Lent, hence the purple/dark blue colours; they added one week of "joy"-- the pink "Gaudette Candle"--because they thought that two full seasons of penance was overkill. At any rate, the Christmas celebrations were meant to happen after Christmas Eve-- after His arrival on the scene--and the time leading up to Christmas morning was all about the delayed gratification of waiting for it.
But we don't do delayed gratification that well any more, so the Advent Season has sort of morphed into the pre-Christmas Christmas Season.

And maybe there's something lost there; because there's something powerful in the delayed gratification, the spiritual preparation, the waiting of Advent. It's a time to remember how God's people once sat in darkness, waiting for the light. It's a time to recall their ache, as they longed for the deliverance that God had promised them through their ancient prophets. And it's a time to remember their hope, when they finally heard John the Baptist, that last great prophet of God's Coming One, crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the Way for the Lord."

But more than mere remembrance, Advent is a time for us to ask ourselves: if he had come to us that first Christmas so long ago, would we have been prepared? Are our hearts so tuned to the things of God that we would have recognized Salvation for the World as it stirred silently and scandalously in the womb of an unwed mother? Are we so spiritually awake to God's passion for the poor, his heart for the humble, his embrace of the outcast, that we would have named that child "Emmanuel"-- God with us-- as he squirmed newborn in the humble arms of the homeless virgin who'd just delivered him into the world?

As we ask ourselves these questions during the Advent Season, we have the chance to prepare again. We can invite God to name, weigh and gently purge the things of this world that keep us unprepared for his coming. We can ask God to teach us again what it means to long for deliverance from the darkness of our petty sins, and selfishness, and pride. We can allow God to renew our own heart for the poor, the humble, the outcasts of this world.

Because in the advent season, we remember not only that he came, but also that he is coming.
As he came once, so he will come again-- quickly-- like a theif in the night-- when the hearts of many have grown cold or sleepy with waiting-- when many of the servants have given up the work and most of the lamps have run out of oil-- he'll return and claim his own. And as we prepare for the celebration of his first coming, so we prepare our hearts and renew our expectation for his Second Coming, asking and hoping that we'll found ready and waiting.

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