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

10 Lessons Learned Blogging

The other day I was talking to a friend who was thinking about starting a blog but didn't know if, or where to start. After the chat I was still mulling over some of the lessons I've learned in the last year and a bit of blogging (real practical lessons, mind you, not philosophical epiphanies or lead-in-to-a-joke kind of lessons).


In what follows I defer completely to those who have been doing this longer, but here are some practical rules of thumb I've found helpful.

1. Decide why you're doing it before you do. In my experience, blogging can be a sort of love-hate experience (especially if you're committed to items 2-5 below). The blog, in one sense, is never satisfied. Unlike a paper, or a sermon, or a story, it's never "done," and next week the post you just spent hours crafting will feel kinda stale and you'll have to start all over again. Knowing why I started doing this, after all, helps on those days when it feels it would be easier to just pull the plug.


2. Keep them short. This was a real tough one for me, starting a blog straight out of seminary and all, but the discipline of keeping my blog posts to around 500 words has (I think) improved my writing generally. It's curious, but I find writing a 500 word post harder than a rambling 1100-er. Go figure.

3. Keep it coming. This is a tough one too, but I've found that consistent posting is a really helpful discipline (he says after eight days of silence....); it develps the habit of regular writing, and once you find the groove, it makes the general experience of blogging more pleasant.

4. Plan ahead. Keeping a running list of possible post ideas as they come to you really helps with #3, especially when that computer screen is staring you down, a week since your last post, and you still don't know where to start.

5. Write ahead. This helps a lot with #3, too. I took a couple of weeks a while back and hammered out ten or twelve short back-up posts which I keep on file for those weeks when the well's dry or I don't have much time to put down the bucket.

6. Take breaks. Rather than just letting things peter out, I've tried to take intentional hiatuses (hiatai ?) from blogging when I find my creativity or energy is flagging, setting a specific stop-and-re-start date for myself. The few times I've done this I find I come back blogging with renewed enthusiasm.

7. Use Dropbox. Dropbox is an easy-to-use online file sharing service and about the quickest way I've found to include additional content (files, word documents, pdfs, video games, etc) in your posts. Just put it in your dropbox and then include a link on the blog. Done.

8. Use videos for podcasts. When I started I wanted to embed audio files in some of my posts. Doing some research I discovered this is a lot more tricky than it sounds. I found lots of ways to embed audio using html code, but the problem was it didn't always work, depending on the browser you were using. Often it "forced" the music which is really annoying. And you always needed off-site hosting. The simplest solution I've come up with is to convert my audio to a video file, setting it as the sound track to a blank black screen. You can then upload it simply and cleanly straight to the blog using the "add video" feature, and Blogger's video driver takes care of the rest (because I prefer the way it looks, I go in after and adjust the dimensions of the driver in the html code, just to make it more resemble an audio file).

9. Have regular "features." Another one for the sake of #3. Keeping a few "regular features" (e.g. a "movie of the month," book reviews, etc.) helps you with built in post ideas for when the idea-pickings are scarce.

10. Keep lists. Lists are among the most fun, illuminating and interesting posts to write, especially when it's been eight days or so, and you're still staring blankly at the sceen . (Take my post on the 10 lessons I learned blogging, for instance.)

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