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 Psalm They Never Told Me About in Sunday School

Last night there were severe storm warnings for the Moose Jaw region. Walking my dog, I could see menacing clouds piling up in heavy heaps in all directions. I kept humming that line from the old hymn-- "dark is his path on the wings of the storm"-- and watching the horizon-- and thinking about Psalm 29.

Psalm 29 doesn't get as much airtime as the more intimate ones like #23 or #42. This is too bad, maybe, because there's something really subversive going on here that's worth mulling over. On the surface it's this straight forward, albeit glorious hymn celebrating the Voice of the Lord with vivid "severe-storm-warning" imagery. Yahweh presides over the divine counsel (v.1 literally, "the sons of god"), and his mighty Voice rumbles out exactly seven times: it thunders over the waters; it is powerful; it is majestic; it breaks the mighty cedars; it flashes with lightning; it shakes the desert; it strips the forests bare. All creation convulses as Yahweh is enthroned as King forever, reigning supreme over the chaotic waters (v. 10 the "flood").

And in his temple, all cry "Glory!"

But here's the subversive thing: a divine warrior subduing the chaotic waters, sitting enthroned amid a counsel of divine beings, thundering his sevenfold voice from his divine palace-- these are all images straight out of the ancient Baal myths. In fact, in a text that Ugaritic scholars call KTU2 1.101.3b-4 (Ugariticia,V, 3.3b-4), we find a description of Baal sitting enthroned over the flood water, and then a vivid reference to his "seven lightnings," his "eight storehouses of thunder," his "shaft of lightning."

Remember Baal? The enemy of Yahweh? The false god whose cult Elijah worked so zealously to purge from Israel? Well it looks like psalmist here has lifted the precise attributes of the mythic Baal, and then ascribed their glory directly to Yahweh.

In a way that makes playing rock music in church look pretty tame, Psalm 29 uses the specific language of an idolatrous culture to make a bold case for the One True God. Because to claim that Yahweh's voice thunders over the waters is to claim implicitly and subversively that Baal's does not. Ugaritic scholar Peter Craigie says it like this: "Language normally employed to worship Baal for the awesome might of the thunderstorm did not rightfully belong to him who was not true god. Such language belonged to the God of Israel alone."

Now, I think it would be easy to make too much out of the Baal-myth imagery in Psalm 29 (and I've read a few scholars who've done just that). At the same time, however, it would be easier to make too little out of it-- to ignore altogether the startling fact that this psalm makes Baalistic imagery bear witness to Yahweh.

I've posted a bit on culture and Faith lately (like here , here, or here ). And as I wonder out loud about the Christian's prophetic role in a non-Christian culture, I wonder if we shouldn't meditate a bit on Psalm 29. Because here God confounds the claims of an idolatrous impostor by revealing himself specifically and scandalously in the impostor's own terms. It's almost as if you can hear God say to all those ancient Baalists: "You had the right notion of divine glory-- you just ascribed it to the wrong god. There is a voice that subdues chaos and gives life-- only it's mine, and most assuredly not Baal's."

And I wonder what it would look like if Christians were as daring in their apologetic strategy as this Psalmist. What if we looked for broken witnesses to the One True God buried in the language and imagery of the culture around us? What if-- like Psalmist #29-- we pointed these out, saying to our neighbours: "You had the right notion of divine glory-- or divine love-- or divine Spirit-- you just ascribed it to the wrong god."

If we could, we just might hear the same voice of the Lord that the Psalmist heard, rumbling like looming thunder on the distant horizon of his culture.

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