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

Kicking Against the Goads: A Devotional Thought

There's a line in Acts 26:14 that I've always sort of wondered about.

Paul's explaining to the King Agrippa how he met Jesus on the way to Damascus, and he adds something that wasn't there when Luke first described the event, back in Acts 9. In this telling of the story, after asking why Paul is persecuting him, Jesus says: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Like I say, I've never really understood what that line meant-- to kick against the goads-- so the other day I looked it up. And whoah, it makes you think.

Apparently it's a proverb that comes from the practice of plowing with oxen. Plows would have a "spur" or a "goad" on them to poke the ox and keep it moving in the direction the plowman wanted it to go. Once in a while the ox would get a notion in its head that it didn't like being goaded, so it would kick back against the goad, injuring itself. A rebellious ox kicks against the goad, and the resulting discomfort is meant to teach it to do as the plowman says.

Paul, on the way to Damascus, is most certainly in rebellion against God-- kicking against the goad of the Christian Message, (so to speak)-- and the blinding, humbling encounter he has with Jesus-- as painful as it is, will most definitely teach him to submit to the will of the Great Plowman (if you catch my drift).

It gets me thinking about the ways and the times in times in my life, when I've "kicked against the goads"; that is to say, when I've rebelled against God's will for my life and found myself in some spiritual (or literal) discomfort because of it. It really is hard on us, spiritually, when we push back against his good, loving, perfect will for us. Thank God for his patience, and even for his goading. May it teach us all deeper submission, and fuller rest, in his will.

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