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

Commentaries on Song of Solomon, a review

Over the last few weeks at the FreeWay we’ve been doing a verse-by-verse study through, of all books, the Song of Solomon.  I say, “of all books” like that, because, if you know this one, you’ll know that it’s not the most accessible book in the Canon.  And if you don’t know it, well, you may want to give it a read.  Because of its provocative and sensual content, apparently, the ancient Rabbis said that you had to be at least 30 years old to read it.  Although they also said it was the Holy of Holies of the Hebrew Bible.  This series was more demanding for me as a preacher than I expected.  It took  a lot of research, a good deal of planning and a whole bunch of prayer.

As I often do after a series, I’m posting here some reviews of the main commentaries and preaching resources I used in my sermon prep for this one, in case you want to go deeper.

Duane Garrett, Song of Songs/Lamentations, Word Biblical Commentary Series.    Duane Garrett’s commentary was hands down the most insightful, useful and thorough resource I’ve come across for studying this difficult but beautiful book.  He unpacks the imagery with great clarity and sensitivity, and lays out the overarching structure of the book with great skill.  It is a bit on the technical side—not an entry-level book, to be sure—and a bit of a working knowledge of Hebrew is necessary to get all you can out of this resource, but even without it, I think, there’s lots here that would be accessible to the lay reader.  If I only had one book on Song of Solomon on my shelf, it would be this one.

Richard S. Hess, Song of Songs, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Series .  Hess’s commentary made a fine compliment to Garrett’s.  While on the one hand, it is less technical than the Word Commentary, and because of that, more accessible, it is also less thorough and satisfying as a resource for deeper research.  There were times where I felt like his readings of particular scenes or passages were only scratching the surface.  Where he was especially weak was in his efforts (or lack thereof) to describe the over-arching structure of the book.

Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament.   Although the entire third part of this massive, 800 page tome is devoted solely to the Song, Davidson’s book is not, actually, a commentary on Song of Solomon.  It is, in fact, a survey of the Old Testament’s “theology of sex,” and as such discusses every (and I do mean every) text in the OT that deals with human sexuality.   His scholarship and analysis of the data, both biblical, historical and cultural, is extensive and insightful.  It was this one, in fact, which inspired me to do a series on Song of Solomon in the first place.

There were other resources I dipped into, but those were the main three.  I’ve listed them roughly in order of usefulness, but I actually found the interaction between the three of them was the place where God really started to open up this beautiful, sensual, baffling book to me.

Oh yeah, I should also include this resource, as an honourable mention:



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