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

Saturday Morning Sermon (III)

Here's another excerpt from our sermon series in Acts.  The text was Acts 14:8-23. Paul and Barnabas visit Lystra:

There’s this theologian named T. F. Torrance—he’s one of the deepest thinkers about God I’ve ever read—and he’s had a pretty major impact on my own understanding of God.

Well: T. F. Torrance served in North Africa during World War II. He was hoping to be a chaplain, but instead they made him head of “Huts and Canteens,” which meant he spent most of his time delivering supplies to troops in the field; which was okay, actually, because he loved ministering to the soldiers on the front line.

So: in October, 1944, he served as a stretcher-bearer during an assault on San Martino-Sogliano, in Italy. They were under heavy fire all night, and in the morning, Torrance had an experience that haunted him the rest of his life. He says, “When daylight filtered through, I came across a young soldier, a Private Philips, who was barely 20 years old, lying in the mud.” He was mortally wounded and didn’t have long to live, so Torrance knelt with him on the ground. As they sat there in that death-watch, at one point Private Philips said, ‘Padre, is God really like Jesus.’”

Is God really like Jesus? Torrance writes: “I assured him that he was—the only God there is, the God who had come to us in Jesus ... and poured out his love to us as our saviour. As I prayed and commended him to the Lord Jesus, he passed away.”

I don’t want this to sound at all flippant, and I guess I’ll only know for sure when my time comes, but I think that I would be able to die in peace, knowing that when I see God, he’ll be like Jesus.

But like I say, Private Philip’s question left a lasting impression on Torrance. Later he would write these words about the experience: “There is no hidden God lurking behind the back of Jesus... but only the one, Lord God, who became incarnate in him.” Jesus himself said it more simply still: “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

I’m telling you this today, for the same reason Paul said it to those Lystrians that day, who were trying to sacrifice a bull to him because they were under the wrong impression about God.

Listen: if you’ve been struggling under the wrong impression about God—that God doesn’t care and can’t be trusted, that he’s out to get you, or doesn’t want anything to do with you—that “the Father up above will squish you like a bug”—if you’ve been living with these impressions of God—or worse—then this is your invitation today: look into the face of Jesus Christ, and let God make a lasting impression on your life.

Because the Gospel heals our wrong impressions of God.

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