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 Geometry of Heaven?

One more reflection on math, and I think the frustrated math teacher in me will finally be sated.

Augustine said that the nature of God is like a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumfrence is nowhere. Whatever else that might mean, it does show how mathematical concepts can sometimes open up new ways to reflect on the spiritual life.

Take fractal geometry, for instance.

Fractal geometry is the study of infinitesimal space. A "fractal" is a geometric image that gets infinitely more complex as it gets infinitely smaller. Mathematical fractals are based on an equation that goes through iterations, reproducing designs at smaller and smaller scales. Every enlargement of a fractal reveals a shape of increasingly fine detail and complexity.

One of the more immediate ways to "get" fractal geometry is through the deceptively simple concept of the Koch Snowflake.

Here's how you do it: start with an equilateral triangle with a side x. The perimeter of this triangle (3x) can be increased by a factor of 4/3rds by adding an equilateral triangle with sides 1/3x to each of its three sides. Add an equilateral triangle with sides 1/3rd as big again (1/9x) to each of these 12 sides, and you increase the perimeter by another 4/3rds. Add triangles to each of these 48 sides and increase it another 4/3rds. And so on. Because every side formed by adding a new triangle can always be divided by three, the process can be repeated infinitely. Each time we increase the perimeter by a factor of 4/3rds, but the perimeter never touches itself.

If we could zoom in to even the tiniest side of snowflake, we'd see an edge that looks like this:
The length of the perimeter of the snowflake at the nth iteration is
x*3*(4/3)^n. We take the limit of the sequence thus:
(i.e. because n has no limit, the Koch Snowflake has an infinite perimeter. )

But here's the thing that makes you go hmmm. We can draw a circle around the Koch Snowflake that clearly encloses a finite area (A=π r^2). And the infinite perimeter of the Koch Snowflake will never go beyond the finite area of the circle. Actually, the area of the snowflake can be calculated specifically as:


We say, then, that the Koch Snowflake has a finite area bounded by a perimeter of infinite length.


Infinity in the finite; the finite in the infinite.

The ancient rabbi says God has put eternity into our finite hearts-- and still we cannot comprehend what he has done from beginning to end.

Now, just in case my theology prof is reading this, let me stress, I don't believe this is somehow mathematical proof for the eternity of heaven. But there's this. In The Last Battle, the children are pressing deeper and deeper into Aslan's country, finding each depth more ponderous than the one before. And Mr. Tumnus says: "It's like an onion, except that as you continue to go in, each circle is larger than the last."

Winsome words for the ways of heaven.

Sort of reminds me of the Koch Snowflake. And it strikes me that sometimes a mathematical analogy can be just as evocative as a poetic one.

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