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

Faithfulness Big and Small: A Devotional Thought

In 2 Kings 5:11-20, we find some well-worn Sunday-School flannel graph material that raises some poignant questions about faithfulness, obedience and the life of a disciple. The back story goes like this: Naaman, a wealthy, influential and powerful Syrian Warrior, was suffering from leprosy and went to the Hebrew prophet Elisha for healing. Elisha sends a message that Naaman must wash 7 times in the Jordan river and he'll be miraculously healed. Naaman is deeply offended. He expected Elisha to come out and do some grand gesture befitting a general of his stature: laying on of hands, elaborate incantations, bells and whistles. Instead he gets a simple directive to wash in the Jordan. Naaman leaves in a huff, but his servants ask him a very obvious, but very profound question: "If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, you'd have done it, why, then will you not do this small thing he's asked you to do?" (v. 13). Why, indeed, except that the small act of obedience-- the simple thing-- doesn't appeal to his pride, as much as the grand gesture of spiritual super-heroism might have. Naaman can't prove how deserving he is of God's mercy and blessing, in the small act of obedience; he can't show God justified in choosing to heal the likes of him, through a simple act of straight-forward and relatively easy obedience. Can he? And that, I think, is Elisha's point.

It gets me thinking about the ways I neglect the small acts of obedience-- the simple, straight-forward stuff that God asks me to do-- because they don't appeal to my spiritual pride (even as I tell myself that, if God were to ask for some grand act of surrender or sacrifice, surely I'd do it). And it reminds me of Jesus' words about how those who are unfaithful in the small things won't be faithful in the big. And it leaves me praying God would give me deeper and truer faithfulness in the little things, that my discipleship would turn on that.

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