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 densest 25 minutes of my week

A friend of mine stopped by the office when I was working on this Sunday's sermon. When he asked what I was doing, I said, "I'm trying to think of a way to describe the meaning of the hypostatic union without using that term." The hypostyatic union is the 10-dollar-theological term the Church uses to describe the union of the two natures, fully human and fully God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a very rich theological concept with a distinguished theological heritage, and I was trying, not just to explain what it means, but show why it is, after all, Good News.

Well, you can listen below and see if I was able to or not.

But in addition to theological reflections, I was also trying to flesh out the intertextual resonances between this text and the Book of First Samuel. "Intertexuality" describes the way texts draw on other texts to create layers meaning. The New Testament writers do this all the time, quoting, alluding to and evoking Old Testament texts as easily as breathing; and sometimes to really get to the bottom of a New Testament passage, we have to tune our ears to these "intertextual echoes." The definitive book on this idea, a book that truly rocked my Bible-reading world when I read it in Seminary, is Richard Hays' Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Again, however, I wasn't so much interested in explaining this as a literary device as much as unfolding why an intertextual echo of Samuels story (in this case) is Good News for us as Christians.

Again, you can decide, if I did nor no.

But after trying to weave abstract theological concepts, subtle literary interpretations, proclamation of Good News, and suggestions towards life application, together into a tapestry of language that is accessible and compelling and evocative to a wide range of listeners, it's perhaps easy to see why the Sunday morning sermon so often feels like the densest 25 minutes of my life; and I'm once again reminded of William Willimon's line, that "no one who's felt what it is to preach the Word of God will ever feel like they've done it."

Luke 2:52. Older, Wiser, Stronger, Loved

1 comments:

Rob Clements said...

1/5 stars for Napolean Dynamite????