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 Clock of the Long Now, a song

Here's another song from my recent album, inversions.  The "clock of the long now" is a project some scientists and engineers are working on in Nevada somewhere.  It's a clock that's designed to keep time for the next 10,000 years. The goal of the project is to inspire long-term thinking in a world where our whole sense of time is organized around increasingly ephemeral time-spans. I have trouble imagining the next ten years (sometimes 10 minutes is a stretch): this clock ticks once a year, with a "century hand" that advances every hundred years and a cuckoo that comes out every millenium.

From the first time I heard about it, I've always thought there was a song in there, somewhere, waiting to be sung.  And last year, when my heart sort of entered this surreal place where life itself seemed like an interminable now, it was very cathartic to finally find the time to sit down and write it.

Here's what I came up with:





World’s turning in a time lapse freeze frame
Capturing the moment on the face of the clock of the
Long now, ticking in the dark of the
Long night of the soul and

It’s of the essence it’s on our hands it
Heals all wounds it waits for no man
Somehow you got stuck in the middle of a
Long now (how time flies)

We had forever burning in our hearts
Warming our hands in the flickering light

There’s time to scatter stones
And to gather them again
Time to tear and time to mend
You know I’d turn back the hands if I knew how
To wind the clock of the long now

Yesterday, today tomorrow
Time slips by it’s running to a stand still
Life in beautiful motion
Pictures (thaw the freeze frame)
A day with you is like a thousand
Years are flying by like restless
Days ago I thought I saw
Eternity in your eyes

We had forever burning in our hearts
Warming our souls in the flickering light

There’s time to scatter stones
And to gather them again
Time to tear and time to mend
You know I’d turn back the hands if I knew how
To wind the clock of the long now
Ticking in the dark it’s ticking in the dark it’s
ticking in the dark of the night of the long now (x4)

I thought I heard a thief knocking on my door
I thought I saw the sky turn red last night
Powers shaking the stars were falling
An angel calling in my dreams last night

There’s time to scatter stones
And to gather them again
Time to tear and time to mend
You know I’d turn back the hands if I knew how
To wind the clock of the long now

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