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

On Chasing and Waiting and Which is Which, a Devotional Thought

There's this subtle but fascinating linguistic parallel between Hosea 6:3, in the Old Testament, and James 5:7 in the New. In Hosea, the prophet exhorts his people to "acknowledge the Lord and press on to know him, because he will come to us like the winter rains and the spring rains." This line finds a haunting echo in the James passage, where James says, "Be patient and wait for the Lord's coming; Just like a farmer plants his crops and then waits for the autumn rain and the spring rain, so too we should wait, for the Lord is coming."

This verbal parallel gets even more interesting when you look up the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. In the LXX version of Hosea 6:3, the Greek words for "winter and spring rains" are the exact same words as James uses in 5:7 (proimos kai opsimos). What's fascinating about this, though, is that James is talking about patiently waiting for the Lord, and Hosea's talking about earnestly, actively pursuing him. Yet in both cases the outcome is exactly the same: he comes to us like the spring rain and the winter rain.

This is more than just a curious piece of Bible Trivia. It actually speaks to one of the deep paradoxes of the spiritual life: sometimes the best way to wait for the Lord is to chase hard after him with all we've got, and sometimes the best way to chase after the Lord is to wait patiently for him to come to us.

The obvious question all this raises is: "Which is which, today?" In other words: does my "waiting for the Lord" need to look more like Hosea's earnest pursuit of him? Or does my "pursuit of God" need to look more like James' patient farmer watching the clouds pile up in the sky and waiting for them to arrive? Knowing which we are called to be in this given moment-- a Jamesesque Hosea or a Hosean James--takes careful discernment and deep wisdom; but both James and Hosea would agree, I think, that He comes most surely to those who have learned to wait with perfect restfulness as they pursue him with earnest longing.

 

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