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

From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (II)

I think the first three chapters of Genesis some of the most beautifully crafted passages in the whole Bible. Genesis 2:25 ends by saying that the man and the woman were naked (‛ârôm) but not ashamed. And then 3:1, the next verse says that the serpent was the most "shrewd" (‛ârûm) creature of all those God had made.

It's so curious: in the Hebrew, the word for "shrewd" that's used there derives from the same word as the word for "naked" (i.e. both come from the same root word). At the end of the passage, when he sees them in fig leaves, God will say, who told you you were "‛ârôm"? Who else but that "‛ârûm" serpent who deceived us? (In other words, there is a profound connection between the serpent's nature as "cunning" (ârûm) and the way he exposes us to shame in our "nakedness" (ârôm).)

There's another layer to this, though. In 3:8 it says that Adam heard the sound of the Lord walking in the "cool of the day." Whar's interesting to me, though is that in Hebrew, it uses the word "ruach" there to describe the "cool of the day." Literally, God was looking for Adam in the "day's ruach." That stood out to me, because the word "ruach" is one of those multi-layered words in the Bible. It can mean "spirit" (like it does in Genesis 1:2 or Job 27:3). It can mean "breath" (like it does in Psalm 104:29). Or it can mean "wind" (like it does in Genesis 8:1).

It seems like here it's meant as "wind"-- God came to Adam in the "breezy" part of the day (?). But it's a strange phrase, and it's the only place I'm aware of where "ruach" is used to mean "the cool of the day" like this (my Hebrew-Scholar friends are sincerely invited to chime in here). What it makes me wonder is this: healing for Adam and Eve's shame over their nakedness is found (or at least a covering for it, until the ultimate healing is made available) by encountering God in the "day's ruach"-- the cool of the day, if we're thinking about it in terms of the story line; the "spiritual time of the day," if we're thinking about it in terms of its implications for us.

Do we have a time of the day, each day, that we would describe like that-- the "ruach of the day"? What I mean by that is: a time of the day that is set aside as sacred, where our spirits encounter his Spirit, and it's so centering and rejuvenating and peaceful, that it's sort of like walking with a good friend in the evening's cool after a long hot day of toil?

May God encounter each of us like that, on a daily basis, and may those encounters heal in us any lingering shame or fear or hiding that's still happening for us because of that first, ancient brush with the serpent's "ârûm-ness."

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