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

It's a Given, a devotional thought


The other day I was reading Revelation Chapter 13, and this simple but powerful phrase kept jumping out at me. It's right in the middle of that very vivid and somewhat unsettling vision of the Beast coming out of the Sea (13:1-10) and the Beast coming out of the Earth (13:11-13), which I take as a highly symbolic, apocalyptic description of the Powers and Principalities at work in the world (those that were at work during the Roman persecution of the Church then and those that are still at work in the world whenever similar atrocities, idolatries and/or imperialistic projects rear their heads...). 

 Anyways, the interpretation of Revelation is a ponderous task, fraught with challenges, but like I say, in my reading this simple phrase jumped out at me: “It was given to him...” Three times John uses the passive form of the verb “to give” in this passage, in regards to the Beast and its apparent authority. In 13:5, “he was given a mouth to utter blasphemies,” and “he was given authority”; in 13:7 “he was given power to make war against the saints.” 

 There is something very subtle but very powerful going on here, because obviously to say that “something was given...” in the passive form like this sort of raises the question: Given by whom?

Earlier (13:2) it’s the dragon (a symbol for the Satan) who “gives the beast his power and his throne and his authority”; but here, it’s less obvious who is doing the giving. If John had meant that the dragon was the giver, surely he would have specified the dragon as the subject of the verb, as he did before. But he didn’t; he doesn’t. And the reason, I think, is because ultimately, any apparent power or apparent authority that the beast (i.e. the Powers, Principalities, Rulers and Authorities at work in this world) may have, whether they admit it or not, is given them by God.

Even if they use that authority idolatrously and blasphemously, as the Beast does in Revelation 13, in some mysterious way, even then it doesn’t change that fact that whatever authority they may have they hold only according to the will or God. And this is good news for us, because it means that, even when evil and darkness seems to be winning, their victory is, in the final analysis, illusory. God is still in control; the beast (or beasts, such as they are) is not and every “beast” from the Roman Empire up to the present day, will give an account, in the end, for the way they used the authority God permitted them to have.

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