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

Centurion

for Matthew 8:5-13

Centurion.
you man of war,
hekatonarkos, noun, singular masculine: Centurion. Lord of a hundred.

Man of control. man in control. like one with authority. under authority.
man of control.
you arm of Caesar, you
fist of Herod, you.
who says go and come, and it comes and goes. who says do.
it gets done.
like one with authority.

But so, so unlike him.

pagan. No Son of Abraham, you.
oppressor. Not yours, the Kingdom.
heir of darkness. heir of idols. child of wrath.

The Kingdom?
you are uncovantanted Heathen,
chief of those who stand against the Kingdom.
you are un-kingdom: Babylon and Rome.
you yourself are anti-Kingdom.
Centurion.

Calling on him, from east or west, with this single war
your word could not command:
“my lad lies languishing, lord.”

So you come,
nothing to offer but
a legacy of enmity: “Shall I myself come and heal him?”
an inheritance of exclusion:
“Not so, my lord, for I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.”
Shall he come to sit at your defiled table? Under your unclean roof?

Profane Pagan.
who calls on this Jewish healer
from a place among those excluded, the unworthy
the least among the polluted: scaly-skinned lepers
and those outside: fever-addled women
and the demonized having badly.
Yet you are centurion.

“Please speak the word and he will be healed.”

Healed. You cannot ask for cleansing.
for you cannot see your filth.
This law that called for cleansing was not inscribed for you.
The covenant of purity, the ritual of washing are neither your inheritance.
Only pagan sickness.
Simple. Impure.

Only heal him. My lad lies languishing, lord.
Only heal. lies languishing, lord.
Only. Languishing,

Lord.

And there you teach me my story.

For the same physician who marveled over your broken, heathen faith.
the like of which was not in all of Israel—
that same healer who raised up to you your lad—no Son of Abraham, you—
cleansed me. And raised us up—both—as out of stone—
children to Abraham where there were none.

He invited me, with you,
to the feast
in from the unclean outside
in from the pagan darkness
to sit with Abraham and his sons
Isaac and Jacob and all over whom the god of Abraham reigns
a seat at the table of fellowship in
god’s people
god’s promises
god’s pleasure

A child of Abraham as from stone.
A child of the covenant where there was none.

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