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

The Two Books of the Days of Our Lives, a devotional thought

There’s a simple line in 2 Kings 8:21-29 that’s easy to breeze by, but should give us pause if we stop to notice it.  It's describing the reign of king Joram of Judah, and in verse 23 it says, "all the stuff he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?"

You actually see this a lot in 1 & 2 Kings. The author will mention a king, describe a few details about his reign (usually focusing on whether he did right in the eyes of YHWH or not) and then he'll say, basically, "If you want to find out the stuff he did, you can read a different history book."   And like I say, it doesn’t look like such a big deal, unless you stop and ask why. 

Because it suggests to me that there are, in fact, two records of the days of our lives-- the record we keep ourselves, and the record that God keeps. In a way, when you read 1 & 2 Kings, you're reading God's own record of each king's reign; and if you want the world's record of how things went down, you'll have to look elsewhere.  It's sort of a truism that "history is written by the winners," but as far as the author of 2 Kings is concerned, that's bunk. History, in fact, true history, is written by God, and he sifts all the winners and losers through a much different sieve than we do.

And this is where it can, and should, give us pause. Because I know I keep my own "book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah"-- that is to say, I've got my own record of my life story. There are times I failed, and times I accomplished things. I have a list of stuff I've done and gone through that I'm pretty sure "matter," and a million things I've already forgotten about because they seemed so insignificant. Oh, the stories I could tell.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this all-too-human impulse.

But through 2 Kings 8:23, and all the other places in the Book of Kings where you come across that same refrain, God seems to be saying to us:  “Listen.  I will tell the true story of your life, in the end, and you may be surprised by all the plot twists you never noticed while you were living through them. The things you think are so important may only get a footnote, and the things you're embarrassed by or wish you could forget, they may turn out to be key elements of the story in the end. You just keep living it and let me write the history."


May God grant us all the grace to just keep living it and let him tell the story of it, when it's all said and done.

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