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

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

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

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

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.

The Power of Love, a devotional thought on Psalm 62

The other day I was reading Psalm 62 in my devotional time, and a line at the end really stuck with me. The whole Psalm is this effusive ode to the salvation that is found in the Lord—how our souls find rest in him (v.1), how our hope comes from him (v.5), how our honor depends on him (v.7), and how he alone is our refuge (v.8). 

It’s edifying and inspiring throughout, but in the last two lines we come to the heart of the matter, the reason why we rest so secure in God, and the reason why salvation is truly found in him alone: it is because in him alone, absolute power is coupled with perfect love (v.11b-12a). 

 The verse is actually worded in an ear-catching way. “One thing God has spoken,” it says, and “two things I have heard.” Well: which is it (we might be tempted to wonder), one thing or two? It’s a bit of a riddle, I think: God has spoken “one thing” but we’ve heard “two…” 

 Reading on, though, the riddle is quite easily solved. It is only one thing that God has spoken, one single truth he’s revealed about himself, but it’s a truth with two equally balanced halves that together make a whole: Power belongs to God (11.b), and with the Lord is unfailing love.” 

These two aspects of the Lord’s character, it seems, must be held together for us to fully grasp the truth about who he is. He is all-powerful and all-loving at the same time. Miss one or the other of these truths, and we haven’t heard the truth about him.

Suddenly, the reason we depend on him and rest secure in him and all the rest of the things the Psalm said in verses 1-10 come into sharp focus. It’s because he is not only able to accomplish his purposes perfectly (power belongs to him), but his purposes are always loving (with him is unfailing love). And vice versa: not only is he gracious and compassionate, but that love is coupled with the power to realize his compassion towards us. 

This becomes especially profound if we compare the Lord, in this, to the way humans usually hold love and power. Some human beings are powerful, but obviously, when that power is not coupled with faithful love, it becomes monstrous in them. Some humans are loving, but when that love has no power, it devolves into weak sentimentalism. There is something about love that it needs actually to do what it says in order to be loving, and there is something about power that it needs to flow from a place of self-giving for it to be truly powerful. 

 Thanks be to God, then, that in him we find these two things bound together as one; and because of this we can do exactly what Psalm 62 invites us to do: to trust in him at all times and pour our hearts out to him, knowing that as we do we will be enfolded in an embrace of almighty love and ever-loving power.

 

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