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

What's in a Name? A devotional thought

Our Wednesday evening Bible Study at the Corner Church is currently working through a verse-by-verse study of the Book of Revelation.  It's a rich, challenging, moving, and sometimes unsettling book to be digging into, but the Lord never fails to meet us when we gather around it each week.

Last week, for example, we came to Revelation 2:17, and spent some time reflecting on this promise from Jesus that everyone who stays true to him will receive “a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” 

I've always loved this verse and think about it a lot in my work as a pastor. It's a powerful image on its own, but it actually ties into a significant pattern we see throughout in the Bible, where God gets a hold of someone in a dramatic way, and as he does, he gives them a new name. He re-named Abram (Abraham, the “exalted Father”); he renamed Jacob (Israel, the one who “wrestles with God”); he renamed Simon (Peter, “the Rock”) and so on. 

In each story, God’s new name for the person goes right to the heart of something true about them and their relationship with God; and in each story this divine act of re-naming becomes a defining moment for the person, one where they come to see themselves as God himself sees them.

In Revelation 2:17, then, when God promises to give all his victorious followers a “white stone with a new name written on it,” I think we’re supposed to take all sorts of encouragement and hope from that truth.

Certainly our Bible study group did the other night.

Because the Good News is that God, and God alone, knows our “true names.” He knows our true identities, that is to say: who we are, where we came from and where we’re going. He knows it even better than we ourselves do. And as we live victoriously in him, he promises to reveal it to us, giving us eyes to see ourselves the way he sees us, and in doing so, giving us our true names, written indelibly for us on a precious stone held only between ourselves and him.

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