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

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

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

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

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

A Tale of Two Covenants, a devotional thought

In 2 Kings 18:31-37, the city of Jerusalem is under siege by the Assyrians, and the people come out to parlay with the Assyrian general. He says some utterly shocking and blasphemous things about what they intend to do to the inhabitants of the city once they've conquered it (it really is R-rated), and how YHWH can't stop them, any more than any of the other gods of the other nations could. And then in 2 Kings 18:31, he says, "So this is what the king of Assyria says: make a covenant with me, and every man can 'eat from his own vine and drink from his own cistern.'"

Considering what they'll be eating and drinking if they don't (see v.27), this seems like a fair deal.

Only: the word he uses there, "covenant," is a really loaded one. Because the people, right from the beginning of the story, have been in covenant with YHWH. That is the story: God covenants with his people, promises to guard them and guide them, and invites them to love him and serve him. So, in suggesting that the Jerusalemites make a covenant with him, the king of Assyria is also telling them to abandon their covenant with YHWH.

Of course, I'm not standing on a city wall listening to a horde of ruthless barbarians threaten to slaughter me and mine if I don't surrender, so I can't imagine the very real terror that must have swept the city that day, and how tempting it would have been for Hezekiah to cut covenant with Assyria and be done with it. But at the same time, this passage leaves me wondering: where, and how, and when have I made a covenant with the systems of this world, because they promised to bring me peace or spare me difficulty, even though in cozying up like that, it meant abandoning, or at the very least neglecting the covenant God's made with me?

May God help us all see the "worldly covenants" in our lives for what they are; may he keep us faithful in covenant with him, even as he himself is faithful.

 

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