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 (9:1-20)

Three times in Esther 9 it points out that in defending themselves from their enemies, the Jews did not “lay their hands on the plunder” (9:10, 9:15, 9:15), even though back in 8:11, King Ahasuerus explicitly granted them the right to do so. This is one of those off-hand comments that doesn’t look like much, but actually has the weight of redemption behind it, when you scratch the surface. Because Haman, the one who hatched the original plot to destroy the Jews, was an Amalekite—a descendant, of King Agag, in fact—and three times in chapters 8-9, the story takes pains to remind us of his lineage (8:3, 8:10, 9:24).

The reason Haman’s family tree matters so much here, is because Mordecai is a direct descendant of King Saul, Israel’s first and failed King (2:5). And here’s the point: in 1 Samuel 15, the reason Saul failed—specifically—and the reason God rejected him as King over Israel, is because he fought a battle against King Agag of the Amalekites, and, instead of completely destroying everything, he “swooped on the plunder” for his own personal gain. In 1 Samuel 15:19, Samuel indicts Saul with this burning question: “Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?” And for the record, when Ahasuerus gives the Jews to plunder their enemies in Esther 8:11, it uses the same Hebrew word for “plunder” (shâlâl) as Samuel used in 1 Samuel 15:19.

This is more than just some curious piece of Bible Trivia. What’s happening here, I think, is the redemption of Saul’s story, in the faithfulness of his descendants, Mordecai and Esther. Where Saul failed, pouncing on the plunder and making messiahship about his own personal aggrandizement, they succeed, refusing to lay a hand on the plunder and making messiahship (inasmuch as Esther’s whole story is a type of the Messiah) about God’s deliverance and God’s glory alone.

 There are a lot of directions we could go with this, once we notice it, but here’s especially why it matters to me: if God could redeem Saul’s story—Saul, whose miserable reign ended with widows lamenting his failed house and carrion bird picking the remains (see 2 Samuel 21)—if God can bring deliverance out of that story, then there’s no story, no mis-step, no failure, I guess, that he can’t redeem, yours and mine included. Mordecai and Esther’s refusal to “pounce on the plunder” assures us of this: that God will have the last word on all our spiritual failures, and in the Messiah, he is able to make them into something beautiful.

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