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

Timing is Everything, a devotional thought


The time Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead is one of the best-known and most cherished stroies in the Gospel of John. It's the one that gave us Jesus's powerful statement about being "the Resurrection and the Life," and one of the best-known (and easily memorized) verses in the Bible, "Jesus wept." There's a subtext to the story, though, that often gets overlooked but is curcial to understanding the meaning of this miracle.

In John 11:3-6, they send word to Jesus that his friend Lazarus is dying, and in verse 6 it says, Jesus loved Lazarus, “yet when he heard that he was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” Martha will bring this up with him, when Jesus finally comes to see them, after Lazarus has died. “Lord,” she says (v. 21) “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” This is a difficult thing to wrap our heads around, but Jesus delayed his coming to Lazarus, even though, admittedly, that delay caused him and his friends great pain, because there was a deeper, greater glory to be revealed in his delay than could be revealed in his coming immediately. In v.14 he says specifically that it was for the disciples’ sake (and presumably we’re included in that) he didn’t go heal Lazarus immediately, "in order that they might believe." This is a reference, I think, to his raising of Lazarus from the dead, and the profound witness to His glory the resuscitated life of Lazarus will become (11:45, 12:17, etc.). In other words, he delayed, so that Lazarus might pass on, so that he might raise him from the dead, so that many would come to believe in response to this miracle.

There is a hard but beautiful truth here, I think, for anyone who is waiting on Jesus for something, and he is delaying. Hard, because it is sometimes difficult to hold tight to him through that delay (hear again Martha’s pain: “Lord, if you had only been here ....”). But beautiful because, if Lazarus’s story can be trusted, Jesus can bring deeper faith, greater witness, brighter glory out of the waiting, even the disappointment, if we’ll give it to him.

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