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

On Preaching the Historical Jesus

Further OCE thoughts. I wrote this reflection on preaching and history for a pastoral theology class in 2007:

Last summer (2006) I faced the task of preaching at a Bible camp having just read N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, a book that offers an interpretation of Jesus in relation to his historical context. Though Wright’s reading of the “historical Jesus” was illuminating, even edifying in its explanatory force, it left me floundering as I turned to preach a “historically grounded” gospel in a context where the timeless, faceless, “ask-Jesus-into-your-heart” fare was the order of the day. The throes of this experience still lingering in my memory, I was intrigued by Barth’s general skepticism towards “history” in preaching. In response to Barth’s advice that preachers must practice a restraint that respects the intellectual limits of historical criticism, I wonder if the “historical Jesus” has any place behind the pulpit. To what extent should our preaching attempt to situate the Word within a historically tenable narrative about the actual life, teaching and mission of Jesus of Nazareth? If for instance, historical inquiry suggests that Jesus’ parable about the “house built on sand” was actually a cryptic reference to the Temple and a prediction that Rome would bring it crashing down if Israel didn’t turn from the "wide gate” of revolutionary zeal, should this at all influence our preaching of Matthew 7:24-29? For the sake of the wounds I’m still nursing from this summer, I’d like to agree whole-heartedly with Barth, that Christianity must be a “present eschatological experience,” and that historical methods cannot uncover its claims because they “transcend history.” And indeed, if preachers of “the historical Jesus” must content themselves with painting drab portraits of a generic “holy man” behind the pulpit (a lá Marcus Borg’s “man of Spirit”), then let those with ears heed Barth’s claim: The Cross and Resurrection have irrevocably “shattered history,” dooming the quest for the “historical Jesus” to failure. Perhaps. But Jesus did come into Galilee proclaiming that “The Kingdom of God has drawn near”; and, unless we are prepared to settle for a docetic, less-than-fully-human Christ, that message surely meant something specific in its original context. Perhaps historical inquiry into this “something specific” can make our preaching less a matter of fitting a generic “god” into our own individualistic, self-centered stories, and more about being taken outside ourselves and fit into the story that God is telling through his act in and as Jesus of Nazareth.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not going to like it, and perhaps won't be able to deal with it, but Judaic info regarding the historical Pharisee Ribi is at:

www.netzarim.co.il