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 (VI)

Here's another excerpt from our series last month on Spiritual Gifts.  Our text was 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.  You can listen to the whole sermon here.

Maybe it’s because one of my passions happens to be music that I always think of concert band when I read this stuff in 1 Corinthians 12.

When I was a teacher I played saxophone with our High School band for a semester (we’re keeping with the back to school theme here). And one of the things I liked about concert band is: when you got your part for a new song, you had no idea what the song was gonna sound like. Tenor Sax seldom got the melody, you see, so when you played it, it just sounded like random notes all over the place. Incidentally, that may be why when Dani was in concert band, her sister made her practice out in the garage. Because by itself, the clarinet part was just a bunch of squeaky high notes that barely sounded like music.

See: it was only when you played your part with the flute and the tuba and the trumpet and percussion and trombone—you know, all the different instruments together?—only then did it sound like a real song.

And the sax part, of course, sounded nothing at all like the flute part. But then again, the song would be pretty dull if all 70 parts were the same flute part. And the instruments are all pitched differently, too, so the different parts were all written in different keys. Which meant that the parts for a Bb trumpet and the Eb Alto Sax and an F French Horn looked nothing at all like each other. You couldn’t play the flute part even if you wanted to; but when you all played together, it turned out you were playing the exact same song.

And... do you see where I’m going with this? Paul says there’s different gifts, but one Spirit who gives them.

And he’s trying to set us free to play our part with all we got, even if it’s not the flute or the tuba—even if we’re not playing a melody part, or it looks like we’re in a different key, or we can’t quite hear how it fits into the whole song—to play it with all our heart and soul and mind and strength because—because that’s the part the divine composer gave us to play—and we can trust that it fits with all the other parts to make a single, harmonious song of worship for him.

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