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 Thursday Review: Ministry in the Depths

first posted December 12, 2012

Lectio Divina is a spiritual discipline that I would recommend to any Christian who wants to develop a listening ear for God's voice in the world.  The term is Latin for "Sacred Reading" and it's a way of reading the Scriptures where you meditate closely on a single story, or image, or verse.  The idea is to choose a text and read it prayerfully, over and over and over again, allowing God to speak through it as it settles from your mind, through your heart and into your spirit. 

A quick example:  a few years ago I was working through some self-doubt and self-image issues in my Christian life, and as I wrestled with this junk, I realized that a lot of it boiled down to fear: fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of death (in the most abstract sense).  It was at that point that God reminded me of 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear."  So I spent a while in lectio divina on this passage, rolling it over and over in my mind.  Perfect love drives out fear-- how does God love me and how do I know it?  Perfect love-- what is it about my experience of love right now that is imperfect?  Perfect love drives out fear-- what is the nature of my fears and how could God's love drive it out?  And so on.  As these words started to sink in, with their various shades of meaning and levels of emphasis, I actually began to experience the love of God driving out those fears in me.

The reason I'm telling you all this today, though, is because a while ago I was working through some stuff related to my understanding of my purpose as a pastor.  I was praying about it one day, and God reminded me of the story in Luke 5, where Jesus calls his first disciples.  If you recall, he meets Peter, James and John  in a sailboat, washing their nets after a failed night of fishing.  Jesus gets into the boat with them and tells them to let down their nets into the deep water (5:4).  Peter is skeptical, but at Jesus' word he does so, and the subsequent catch they draw in is so miraculous it sinks Peter to his knees with an awed awareness of his own sin, even as the boat begins to sink with the weight of the fish.  (And of course, it's after this catch of literal fish that Jesus calls them to become spiritual fishermen, suggesting, it seems, that this miracle is only a taste of what he will accomplish through them as his disciples).

As I spent some time in lectio divina on this passage, it was that phrase in 5:4 that bobbed to the surface for me:  "put out into the deep water and let down your nets." 

It struck me that Peter and the rest only experience the miraculous presence of the Kingdom of God (as signified by the catch of fish) after they put their nets into the deep water.  And it struck me next that sometimes churches are content to do ministry in the shallows--not to go too deep in their encounter with the Word, or the emotional risk of their ministry, or their engagement with God's world.  It can be tempting, I think, to keep things spiritually superficial--on the surface--safe.

But as those two observations struck me, I heard there God's call to put down the nets "into the deep water" in my own work as a pastor.  With that call came his challenge that it's only there, in the deep water of ministry, that a church will ever answer it's call to become "fishers of men."  Because it's only there, it seems-- going deep with people, spiritually speaking--that the life-transforming miracles of the Kingdom can occur.

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