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

3 Minute Theology: It's in the Genes



Do you sneeze when you look at the sun? Are your earlobes attached or detached at the side of your head? When you clasp your hands together do you put your left or your right thumb on top?

Scientists have discovered that each one of these traits—earlobe attachment, hand-clasping preference, the photo-sneeze reflex—all of them are genetic traits that you inherited from your parents’ DNA.

DNA is a special nucleic acid found in each one of your body’s cells. It’s made up of two strands of molecules called “nucleotides,” that spiral around each other in a shape called a “double helix.” DNA contains all the genetic information you inherited from your parents, determining how you will form and grow and function. It’s the genetic blueprint that makes you you.

The individual sections of DNA that determine individual traits are called genes. Scientists have discovered how to extract individual genes from the DNA of one organism, and insert it into the DNA of a new organism, so that the new organism will express the genetic trait of the donor as it grows and matures.

This process is called genetic engineering, and it has produced all sorts of fascinating genetic hybrids, like drought resistant plants, or pigs that are more environmentally friendly.

While it is a very controversial field of study, genetic engineering can serve as a useful analogy for a central, but somewhat controversial theological concept that describes the role the Holy Spirit plays in bringing us to salvation.

The concept is: regeneration. Literally, regeneration means “being born again,” and it refers to the idea that, if and when we come to faith in Jesus, something fundamental must change in us from how we were before we came to faith. Almost as if we need to be reborn, a second time, as a brand new person.

This is, in fact, how Jesus himself describes it: “No one can see the Kingdom of God,” he said, “unless they are born again.” In another place, the Apostle Paul is talking about our salvation, and he says , “he saved us ... through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” The Apostle Peter agrees, “he has caused us to be born again to a living hope.”

All the writers of the New Testament agree, actually, that coming to faith involves becoming a brand new person, a change so fundamental that it can only be described as “rebirth.” The controversy is about when, and how this change happens. Does it happen when we believe, or after we believe? Does it have to happen before we believe, in order that we might believe?

And what exactly does this “new birth” look like? Do we instantly become a brand new person, and if so, what kind of change is it? And what about areas of my life that don’t change?

And this is where the analogy of genetic engineering may be useful.

Like the geneticist who initiates the process of genetic transformation, the Holy Spirit initiates our coming to faith through his prevenient grace; and just like no organism can initiate its own genetic transformation—it can only receive genes from the host—neither can we initiate our own rebirth.

However, if and as we receive God’s grace and don’t reject it, the Holy Spirit does a work of regeneration in us. Like a geneticist who takes the genes of a donor organism and inserts it into a host organism, so that the traits and characteristics of the donor show up in the host as it matures, so too with the Holy Spirit.

He takes the character, spirit and qualities of the Resurrected Jesus and spiritually “inserts them” into our heart, so to speak, so that as we mature in the Christian faith, our lives will exhibit his characteristics more and more.

In this sense, we are born again, with the DNA of Christ.

The change may not be immediate—sometimes genetic traits take a while to appear—but the New Testament insists that it has happened when we are saved. Like it says in one place: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

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