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

Jamming with the Maestro, a thought on prayer

One of my favorite viral videos is of a violinist performing a solo piece in concert.  The audience sits enraptured as the performance reaches its majestic crescendo, and then someone’s cell phone thoughtlessly breaks the spell.

But what this maestro does with the interruption is amazing.


So: the way this maestro graciously incorporates the harsh music of that cell-phone into his performance provides us with a helpful starting point, I think, for understanding Christian prayer.

Now: it’s a basic axiom of the Christian life, that Jesus Christ acts on our behalf as our Great High Priest in Heaven, interceding for us before the Father. Our prayers always come to God in, through and with the prayers of our Mediator, the God-man Jesus Christ.

We see this principle at work in some fascinating ways in the New Testament.

Take the well known “Lord’s Prayer,” for instance.  The disciples see Jesus praying, and ask him to teach them to pray.  And the prayer he taught them goes like this: “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Towards the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself is praying, in a garden called Gethsemane.  It’s right before his crucifixion, and Matthew says Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to pass from me, then thy will be done.”

Right before his obedient death on the cross, Jesus himself prays perfectly the prayer he taught his disciples to pray—that the Father’s will be done.

In Mark’s Gospel, we see the same thing from a different angle.  In Mark’s Gethsemane, Jesus prays these words:  “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you; take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.”

The word “Abba” is an Aramaic term for Father that expresses intimacy and familiarity—the word “Dad” maybe gets us close to it in English.

But in another place in the New Testament, it’s talking about our life with God, and it says this:  “We are all children of God ... who have received a Spirit of Sonship, and by the Spirit we cry out ‘Abba, Father.’”

In other words: the Holy Spirit puts Christ’s prayer in us when we pray to the Father, and by the Holy Spirit, our prayers become part of the beautiful, trusting, ‘Abba Father’ prayer he prayed in Gethsemane.

What all this means in practical terms, is that when Christians pray, our prayers are united with Jesus’s own prayers to the Father.  He gathers them all up into himself, perfects them in his own self-giving, and then offers them for us in his one glorious prayer:  “Abba, Father, Thy will be done.”

But what does this actually look like?  If Jesus prays for us, does the actual content of our individual prayers mean anything?

Well: imagine a violinist performing in the great concert hall that is heaven.  His music is sweeping and rapturous, and as he performs , sometimes-well-meaning, sometimes-thoughtless, but never especially musical ringtones break the moment.

To the extent that we never know how to pray as we ought, and even when we try, our humanness always gets in the way—in that sense our prayers are those garish ringtones.

The difference, of course—and it’s the difference that makes all the difference— is that rather than seeing these ringtones as thoughtless interruptions, this maestro joyfully welcomes them.

Because he’s the consummate artist.

And he’s able not just to transform them into music, but to weave them seamlessly, effortlessly, and joyfully into his performance, so that they thrill the audience, and without ever losing their original quality, sound as if they always belonged.

This is what Jesus does with our prayers, as faltering and imperferfect as they always are, he gathers them up into his own liturgical self-giving to the Father in heaven, uniting them with his own perfect prayer and offering them with his, to the Father.

In this way our prayers become part of his glorious masterpiece: Yes, Abba Father, Thy will done, on earth as it is in Heaven!

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