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

Learning to Walk, a devotional thought

There's this very tender, very poignant passage in Hosea 11, where the prophet is talking about how much God loves his people (Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom of Israel), and he pictures it as a mother or father "taking their child by the arms" and teaching them how to walk. I remember back when my children were learning to walk, how thrilling that was for me, as their parent: holding them by both hands while they wobbled ahead tentatively, and speaking all sorts of encouragement and affirmation over them, as they took every next step. And God says to Ephraim-- and through Ephraim, to us-- "I was like that with you, as you learned to walk in the spiritual life, holding you lovingly and calling you on in those next teetering steps, and the next, and the next, till you could do it on your own (and even then, I didn't let you go)."

I've been walking for a while now-- so long that I can't really remember a time when I couldn't--but Hosea 11:3 prompts me to remember those times when it was all wobbly and brand new-- life as a Christian-- and every spiritual step was a milestone and a triumph and an adventure all at once.

We must remember how he held us by the hands while we learned to walk, like that, because the problem in Hosea, is that God's People have forgotten. They figure they learned to walk on their own. "You did not realize" God goes on to say in verse 3, "that it was I who healed you." Suddenly, learning to walk has transformed into deep spiritual healing (because, after all, that's what was really happening when you were learning to walk with Jesus: you were being healed, even if you didn't realize it).  May God will keep us all from falling into Ephraim's trap, the trap of thinking I'm a self-taught walker when it comes to spiritual things, instead of acknowledging myself as a God-healed toddler.

0 comments: