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

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

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

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

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

Home Again, Home Again, Saturday Morn

a poem

From rambling spaces and
widening roads
with nothing
to do
but
think,
I’m back.

From retreat and the past and a
Sabbath the colour deep blue skies
I’m home;
and it’s Sunday morning again,
rushing in upon me reckless
with the urgent clatter of now.

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Back in the Blogging Saddle

This summer I took a semi-intentional break from blogging.  This was partly just a dry-spell in post ideas that turned into an extended hiatus, but it was also time for a gut-check for me.  When I started blogging back in '09, I didn't really have a long term plan for the blog, and I was starting to wonder in '012 if I'd said all there was to say about God, life, faith, love, words and spirituality. 

Enough people mention terra incognita to me off and on that I know there's somebody out there reading this.  But I reached a point this June where the only thing I could think of when I sat down at the dashboard was: why bother?  And so I didn't for a while.

Google tells me there's a name for this malaise.  At least, enough hits turn up when I type "blogging fatigue" into the search engine that I know I'm not alone.  So I decided to take a breather.  If you love something, they say, let it go.  If it comes back to you it was meant to be.

It did come back to me.  Sometime around the end of July, I started to find renewed inspiration and purpose for this site.  However, rather than jumping right back in with the usual promises to do better - writing cheques I couldn't cash and all - I thought I'd just start writing without the pressure of posting for a while and see where that got me.  A month or so later I've got enough posts on deck that I feel confident to announce the "relaunch" of terra incognita with a guarantee of regular posting through to January. (Given the price of this blog, I'm even prepared to make that a money-back guarantee.)

For those who have been with me on this journey since the out-set, let me thank you here for your patience as we grow to serve you better.

For those of you who are visiting for the first time, a word about this blog.  terra incognita is Latin for "unknown country." It's a reference to the way Jesus leads us into unknown territory (literally or spiritually speaking) whenever we follow him in faith.  You can think of this blog as a giant spiritual connect the dot, where we try to draw lines between 1) stuff I see going on in the Bible,  2) stuff I see going on in the world, 3) stuff I'm reading about, and 4) stuff I love about art, culture, media and literature. 

I hope you'll pick up a crayon and join me.

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