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 (3:11-15)

From what I understand, in the Jewish tradition whenever the Book of Esther is read (once a year at the Feast of Purim), it's customary to boo, hiss and/or heckle whenever Haman's name get's mentioned.  There's something very visceral in this that seems appropriate.  The genocidal plan, as it’s described in verses 3:14-15, is about as absolute as it can get: an order sent to “every province in every language of every people-group” to “destroy, kill and annihilate them all, young and old, women and children, in a single day” (did we miss anything, Haman?)  And then in verse 15, just to send a cold chill down the spine, like a chaser of whiskey after a long, deep swig of utter doom, it says that after the couriers left, “The King and Haman sat down to drink.”   Having sealed the fate of God’s People, they sit down to clink their glasses together over some fine Merlot.

Reading in slow bites like this keeps you from jumping to the end of the story too soon.  I want to say something about how the point of Esther is that even when things seem their darkest for God’s people, He hasn’t abandoned them.  He’ll see them through when it seems most hopeless.

But Esther isn’t making that point yet.

Right now, I think, it’s making this other point: don’t forget the plight of God’s people as they face the Haman’s of this world.  Because the truth is, Haman is not just some vaudeville villain from the vague and distant past.  Haman-esque atrocities are real; history is bloated with them.   I was going to say something about the “spirit of Haman” that swept the world during World War II, but I don’t, actually, have to go back that far for examples.  A while ago, a friend of mine who was doing missions work in Niger, sent an update about the Haman-esque stuff that was going on in that part of the world right now: churches burned, Christian homes looted, believers displaced.  A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to Zanzibar, with reports of churches bombed and Christians persecuted.  I support the work of Gospel for Asia, and often get news updates about the violence against Christians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India.  I realize there are many layers to each of these stories, but as I reflect on Esther 3:11-20, it feels like God's saying to me:  Dale, if your heart doesn’t break for them, and your knees don’t wear out praying for them, then the picture of Haman and Ahasuerus, drinking a toast to the end of the People of God hasn’t sufficiently chilled your spine yet.

Of course, the challenge for Christians, here, is to feel these things without demonizing the Hamans themselves; Christ would have us pray, not hiss, every time we hear Haman’s name read in Esther: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is how he said it.  May God give us deep compassion and great courage whenever we encounter the Spirit of Haman, however it manifests itself in this world.

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