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: The Ineffable Line

first published May 7, 2010

I've been working on a song for about seven years now. The idea came to me one Sunday morning when I happened to open the Bible randomly to Isaiah 49:16, and read these lines: "Can a mother have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. Look: I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." The imagery stuck in my imagination, and with it, this line rang in my head: "I wrote your name with the nails of the cross / on my hands and feet that it might never be lost." When I got home I sat down at the piano and plunked away until I had the seed of a song planted.

This is the song that the seed's grown up into, seven years later:

I have inscribed you


Now the song hasn't really changed that much in seven years; I only say I've been working on it ever since because of those difficult lines at 2:54: "It was broken for you / It was offered for you / It was poured out to..."

For seven years now I've been trying to find the best way to end that line. It [i.e. Christ's life] was poured out to...well... to what? How do you summarize the meaning of Christ's death in 5 syllables? (That is, 5 syllables so that the line will scan; ideally it will rhyme with "you" too)?

In theological terms, my song writing dilemma has to do with the Doctrine of the Atonement-- that is, how do you explain, primarily, why Christ's death was able to save sinners like us. There are a number of traditional answers to this question in Christian theology, various "Models of the Atonement" that we might draw on to fill in those 5 missing syllables. Let me illustrate with some examples from some contemporary worship songs:

Penal Substitution
Christ took the punishment for sin in our place: You are my King; "I'm forgiven because you were forsaken / I'm accepted, you were condemned"

Christus Victor
Christ won the victory over sin, death and the devil through his sinless death: Hope of the Nations; "In history you lived and died / you broke the chains / you rose to life" also, In Christ Alone; "Then bursting forth in glorious day / up from the grave he rose again / and as he stands in victory..."

Satisfaction
Christ's death satisfied God's wrath and/or impinged honour: In Christ Alone; "Till on the cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied"

Moral Influence
Christ's death is the ultimate demonstration of God's love towards us, which turns us from sin when we discover it: Once Again; "Once again I look upon the cross where you died / I'm humbled by your mercy and I'm broken inside"

Reflecting on and learning to articulate my own understanding of the Atonement has been an important part of my journey with Christ and my formation for ministry. The various "versions" of my song reflect milestones on that journey.

I'm embarrassed to say, for instance, that the first version reflected the typical, Evangelical, "Personal(ized) Jesus" model of the Atonement that I'd unconsciously absorbed from songs like "You took the fall / and thought of me above all": "It was broken for you / it was poured out for you / It was offered only for you" (ugh)

Later I learned about the Christus Victor model of the Atonement from guys like Gustav Aulen, and I worked with versions of the line like these: "It was broken for you / it was poured out for you / It was paid as a ransom for you" or: "It was broken for you / it was poured out for you / To break death's power over you"

For a while I tried to avoid the Atonement altogether and focused on the sanctifying work of Christ instead: "It was offered to sanctify you"

But a while ago I read Han Boursma's treatment of the Atonement in his book Violence, Hospitality and the Cross, which helped me arrive at a much more robust understanding of Christ's death, and, indeed, the nature of the sin that he atoned for. With his work in mind, this is what I finally came up with:

"It was broken for you / It was offered for you / It was poured out to make all things new"

There are probably better rhymes out there still, but I'll leave it there; or maybe, as a devotional and theological exercise, it would be better to leave the line unfinished, and let the silence symbolize itself the ineffable mystery of the cross.

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