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

Parental Sacrifices, a devotional thought

I was reading Leviticus the other night and this half-baked thought occurred to me.  If you're not used to Leviticus, you need to understand that in the ancient world, animal sacrifice was just a regular part of worship and wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow for anyone; and as Christians we believe that all of the requirements for sacrifice are fulfilled and satisfied in Christ. So don't let the fact of animal sacrifice trouble you too much.  You just have to draw out its meaning for us, today, as followers of Jesus.

And here's where the half-baked thoughts started to rise in the oven: because in Leviticus 12, it's explaining what a woman's supposed to do when she gives birth, and it says, she's to offer a lamb for a burnt offering (burnt offerings are sort of "celebration / thanksgiving" offerings, so that makes sense: "Thanks, God for bringing this new life into the world").  But then it says that she's to offer a pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. And that's the one that's always troubled me, because, really, why would a woman have to offer a sin offering after giving birth? Surely it's not because there's something sinful about parenthood. And surely it's not because there's something sinful about the fact of giving birth. The OT through and through consistently sees children as only a gift and blessing from God. So I never really knew what to do with this one.

But then, like I say, it occurred to me: new mothers (and elsewhere, fathers, though for different reasons and at different times) needed to make a sin offering, not because they've sinned by becoming new parents, but because children need godly parents. Inasmuch as the sin offering was the Old Testament's mechanism whereby a right relationship with God was established and maintained and deepened and strengthened, the "maternal sin offering," I think, is more for the sake of the new child than it is for the new mother.

When I think of myself, for instance, and how self-centred and spiritually immature and unworthy to be a dad I was when my children were bornand how Christ graciously met me in that and helped me to growwhen I put it in that context, the idea of needing a "sin offering" upon becoming a new parent starts to make a lot of sense. After all: what could be better for kids, really, than if every parent took seriously their need to deal with their own sin through Christ, in order to be the kind of parent their kids most need?

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