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 Esther (5:9-14)

In Esther 5:14, after Mordecai once again snubs him, Haman sets about building the 50-foot gallows on which he intends to exact his revenge. There is a layer to this conflict between Mordecai and Haman that isn’t immediately apparent, but once you notice it, some very subtle themes in the Book of Esther start to stand out sharply. Mordecai is from the tribe of Benjamin, a descendant, in fact, of Kish, who was the father of King Saul (2:5). Haman is an Amalekite, a descendant of King Agag (3:1).

This is more than just some random family history. Back in 1 Samuel 15, some 500 years or so before Esther, Saul had led Israel in battle against the Amalekites, and, though God told him to completely destroy Agag’s line, he instead took him hostage (presumably for the ransom or tribute he could exact from him), making the war about his own self-advancement as King, instead of serving the Lord. His “taking matters into his own hands” like this is one of the reasons the Lord rejected him as king; and now, some 500 years later, the whole of God’s people are teetering on the knife-edge of destruction because of a plot hatched by one of Agag’s descendants. On the one hand, the Book of Esther re-frames 1 Samuel 15 for us a little bit, putting Saul’s divine directive to destroy King Agag into fresh perspective. Had Saul followed through on his orders then, Haman would not be scheming now to slaughter God’s people (although, I admit, it only re-frames things a little bit; the violence of 1 Samuel 15 is still hard for Christians to get, and should be). But now, 500 years after the fact, a descendant of Saul must grapple with a descendant of Agag, faithfully succeeding where Saul himself had faithlessly failed.

Christians, of course, interpret the battles of the Old Testament spiritually (our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in the heavenly realms, Eph. 6:12), and when we view this Saul-Mordecai/Haman-Agag conflict from that perspective, a poignant question comes into focus: Who’s to say what beautiful consequence my obedience today may result in centuries from now, in the saving plan of God?

Saul, of course, had no way of knowing that *disobedience* in the Agag affair would blossom into Haman’s genocidal plot some five centuries later, anymore than he could have known that obedience might have averted Haman’s evil. In the same way, we don’t know how God intends to use our victories over the spiritual “Agags” that we’re asked to face, and resist and overcome (again, our battle is not against flesh and blood), years from now, centuries, even, in the mysterious plan of his saving grace. But one of the messages of Esther, I think, is that with Him, no act of obedience is wasted.

0 comments: