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

On the Temptation of Christ (III)

A final thought on the Temptation of Christ that's still humming in my head: I can't help but notice that later, in Matthew 16:23, Jesus will say the very same thing to Peter that he says here, as he resists the Satan's temptation: "Depart from me Satan!" (the same Greek verb hupago is used in both places). Now, I'm not the only one to notice the uncanny parallels between 4:10 and 16:23. Though most manuscripts record Jesus' words in 4:10 as a simple "Depart from me, Satan," at least some ancient manuscripts (C, D and L especially, for all you textual criticism buffs out there), have him saying exactly word-for-word what he'll say to Peter later on: "Get thee behind me, Satan" (lit. hupage opiso mou Satana).


What's going on here?


A re-cap may help. In Matthew 16:23, Jesus has just told his newly-named "Rock" that it is necessary for God's true Christ to suffer shame and die disgracefully; to which Peter has just expressed his worldly incredulity: "Lord have mercy! May it never be!" And it's in that moment, it seems, that Peter has become a stumbling block to him, a "scandalizer" who is thinking not after the way of God, but after the way of the world (16:23). And when I line up 16:23 with 4:10 (the way some ancient scribes, it seems, wanted to), it all becomes clear: in insisting that Jesus be a Messiah after the way of the world, and asking him to forsake the path to Golgatha, Peter is holding out to Jesus the very same temptation he faced on that extremely high mountain, when the satan offered him every messianic glory the world had to offer, if he would only bow to the devil's means and seize it. In insisting Jesus live up to his own worldly measure of "Messiah", Peter, however unwittingly, has become a temptation to Jesus all over again.


And here's where the questions rush at me. Do we tempt Christ, ourselves, like this, whenever we come to him demanding he fit whatever worldly measures of "the Christ" we've set up for ourselves? Do we put God to the test (in a way that Jesus himself refused to do, standing that day on the wing of the Temple), whenever we weigh his Christ against our personal criteria for what makes a Lord-and-Saviour a Lord-and-Saviour? Do we stop our own ears to his invitation to follow him in a life of self-denial and cross-bearing (16:24), because no Messiah in the world would ever suggest that a "life of self-denial" was the "life lived to the full." And in those moments, when we do, are we actually standing like Peter was, on the side of the tempter in Matthew 4:10?


In the wake these questions I'm left wondering if the greatest temptation in the Christian life might be our temptation to tempt Christ, by insisting that he be the kind of Messiah we think we want (a rocks-to-bread, never have to suffer, way-of-the world Messiah), rather than the Messiah God has revealed him to be: the Messiah of the cross.

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