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

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

In Genesis 21:11-20, we read the powerful story Abraham's concubine, an Egyptian girl named Hagar, who bore his first son, Ishmael. At the instigation of his jealous wife Sarah, Abraham sends his concubine Hagar and Ishamel away.  They're out into the desert with a bottle of water and a bit of bread, and things are looking desperate. It says: "When the water was all gone, she left her son under a bush, to die, and then went on a little way and sat down weeping." Death, it seems, is just around the corner for these two.

But then God appears to Hagar and promises to deliver them from their plight ("Do not fear," says the angel, "For God has heard the lad's cries ...") God sets her back on her feet, and then it says-- and this is the part I find so powerful-- it says: "God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, where she filled the skin and gave Ishmael a drink."

That's all it says, really, and it's kinda mysterious: was the well always there and she just never noticed it before? Was it hidden and God pointed it out to her? Did it just appear, miraculously in that moment? I don't know. But whatever happened, God opened Hagar's eyes to see his deliverance right there in front of her, when she couldn't see it before.

It gets me wondering, how often have I been in what seemed at the time a desperate place, and God's deliverance-- his life-saving well in the wilderness-- was right there in front of me, only I couldn't see it for what it was? May each of us have our eyes opened, like Hagar, and especially when we're in places like Hagar was that day, may we have our eyes opened to see the deliverance of God for what it is, and where it is.

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