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

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

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

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

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

From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (III)

There's a spot in Genesis 7:18 that I wonder about every once in a while. It's at the start of Noah's flood, and it says, "The water prevailed on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the water." If you grew up with the same Sunday-School flannel graphs as I did, you've probably heard this story any number of times: God sent a flood and the flood covered the surface of the earth.  But, of course, that's not exactly what it says.  Literally it says "the water prevailed on the earth," and that's what gets me wondering.

If you want really to get what's going on in this verse, you sort of have to understand how people in the ancient world thought about creation-- what it was and how it happened. In most cosmogenies (stories about the origins of the cosmos) in the ancient world, creation happens when the gods (or a single god) fights a battle against chaos. The god defeats chaos, and creation is the outcome of chaos' defeat. You see this in the Enuma Elish, the Atra Hasis, Psalm 89 and elsewhere.

Usually in these ancient creation stories, chaos is represented by either a) a sea monster, or b) the sea itself. For an ancient writer, the waters of the sea are the most potent picture imaginable for the chaos that was before the world was created. (This, incidentally, helps us get why, in Genesis 1, before God gives the earth form and content, all we have is water, darkness, and God's Spirit hovering over the surface of the deep. Flood water=chaos and creation=God's crushing defeat of said chaos.)

With this background in mind, I can't help but wonder if it wasn't a very intentional word choice there, when Genesis 7:18, says that the flood water "prevailed" over the earth. The Hebrew verb there for "prevailed" is actually a battle verb (gâbar); the idea is that God is allowing the chaotic flood waters to "win" the upper hand in the "battle" for creation. But even so, the text is quick to point out-- even though it looked like chaos was winning--still, God's people moved over the surface of the water, albeit terrified, probably, but safe in the ark.

I don't know what you think of when you think of "chaos"-- chaos so intense and destructive that the best image for it is the monstrous, overwhelming water of the sea-- but I have some things in mind for myself. And the good news of Genesis 7:18 is that, even when that chaos looks like it's prevailing-- winning the battle-- and creation itself is coming undone because of it-- God can and will carry his people over the surface of it all, with the promise of New Creation on the other side.

 

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