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 Girl-Queen, the Captive-Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (2:21-23)

After a somewhat heavy reflection in my last post on Esther, today I’m thinking about random acts of kindness. In an almost throw-away line, The Book of Esther mentions how Mordecai found out about a conspiracy to kill King Ahasuerus and warned him through Queen Esther, an event which gets recorded in King's Record Book. It only gets this passing, three verse nod, but if we've read Esther before, we already know that this small, seemingly insignificant act of righteousness is going to yield a harvest of salvation down the road.

Like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, it will create a typhoon of upset for the enemies of God's people, before the story's done. It's doubly remarkable, too, because Ahasuerus just finished abducting Mordecai's cousin and adopted daughter, forcing her into his harem. If anyone had reason to wish the King dead, it was Mordecai, and yet he acts to save him.

It got me thinking about the random times I've "done the right thing" in small ways that maybe even went against the grain of my human nature. It got me wondering, too, how God might use those small, insignificant gestures in his big plan to show the world his salvation. Those two strangers I helped to get home that freezing winter night some ten years back, when they showed up on my doorstep, stranded, at 2 am ... will they turn around and topple a Haman when no one expects it? That troubled student I taught so many years ago, the one I told I was going to be praying for him, and I'm still doing my best, some ten years later, to keep my promise... will he reverse a genocidal plot one day? God knows. But the Book of Esther seems to think that God works powerfully (if hiddenly) in these small, daily, apparently insignificant acts of “doing right by your neighbour,” even if we never know how they fit into his big plan.

This might seem a bit of let down, what with all my talk last time about overthrowing the dehumanizing powers and the insidious principalities like so many beheaded Goliaths; but maybe that’s the point. When God is in it, the smallest act of kindness can overthrow the worst of evils. Goliath was, after all, brought down by a sling-shot.

At the very least, it’s got me re-thinking that place where Jesus said, “Whoever is unfaithful in the small things will be unfaithful in the big things.” Maybe it’s because being faithful in the small things is being faithful in the big.

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