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

Best. Birth. Ever. A devotional thought

In Hebrews 2 we find one of those mind-bogglingly rich passages that, though they may not make it into a Charlie Brown Christmas special, bring us face to face with the True Meaning of Christmas himself.  After establishing that: 1) Jesus is far superior to any angel, and 2) humans, for the time being, are lower than the angels, the author of Hebrews goes on to make this remarkable claim: that Jesus didn't take on any angelic nature, but he took on our human nature instead (2:16), and he did it especially so that, by his death, he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (2:14).

The fancy theological word for this, of course, is incarnation.  What hits you when you let it, is that for the writer of the Hebrews, Jesus' Incarnation was an essential part of our salvation.  The incarnation was not just a "means to the cross" where the "real" salvation happened. Jesus' incarnation was, in itself, part of God's great saving act.  Jesus became a "partaker" of our human nature (2.14), so that we might become "partakers" of his heavenly nature (3:1, and 3:14... the same word, "partaker" is used there to describe our union with Jesus).

Like one of the ancient theologians put it, "He became like us, so that we might become like him".

This is deep stuff, of course, but not so deep after all.  Because by the end of the discussion, the writer of Hebrews has gotten intensely practical.  Because Jesus was made like us in every way (2:17), even to the point of being tempted like us in every way (4:15), he is now able to help us when we are tempted (2:18).  One of the rubber-meets-the-road implications of the incarnation is that God knows what it is you're going through today... literally, he knows what it is you're going through ... because whatever it is, in the Incarnation of his son Jesus, he himself has gone through it.  If the writer of Hebrews can be trusted, there is no corner of your life before God that Jesus himself hasn't taken on himself and lived through perfectly, to the point where he is now able to reach back, or down, or out, or whatever spatial metaphor you want to use, to reach after you, and draw you through it to himself.

May God will give us all both strength and peace in that knowledge this Christmas.

 

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