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

A Journey through the Book of Job (Part 13): Job 41:1-34

Jacob after Peniel, a poem


Did anyone ever tell you
your limp was beautiful
or that it's going to be?

Other men stride into
rooms with all the raw
confidence and numb vigour of
bulls in China shops
(breaking more than
dinnerware with their
untried horns).

But those tender, stumbling
tentative steps of yours
on healing legs and broken heart
they tell a story
more beautiful than words:
of wrestling with the un-nameable
One,
clinging in darkness desperate
till he touched youblessed
you on the hip
and you walked away
transparent,
shining in the final knowledge
of who you are.

Did anyone ever tell you
the ungainly gait he
left you with
was beautiful?

They will.

The Roar of Heaven, a devotional thought

In Revelation 19:6, John the Seer is overhearing the praise of God in Heaven, and he says, “I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder, saying Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns.”

It’s a vivid image when you think about it. The loudest crowd I’ve ever been in was probably the time I saw team Canada play team Brazil in an exhibition soccer game in Edmonton. Canada only scored one goal against the Brazilians, but when they did the 20,000+ packed stadium erupted. It was exhilarating. Makes me wonder what the roar of the crowd in heaven really will be like when we hear it, when the literally billions of men, women and children who have put their faith in him roar in one voice with the praises of the Lamb.

Somehow, “the sound of many waters” seems like an understatement.

Your Jonathan, My David, a song


If you would be my David
Then I’d be your Jonathan:
I’d take off all the trappings
Of the glory I got on;
And I’d remove my armor
And I’d offer you my crown,
If you would be a David
To my lonely Jonathan.

And I would stand before you
Unclothed and unashamed
And I’d show you all my secrets
Just to hear you whispering my name
And if it meant I could no longer
Be my father’s son
Still I’d let you be my David
If I knew that I could be your Jonathan

      Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
     Than any brother could
      There’s a water that is thicker
     Than the purest drop of blood
      There’s a love that is more wonderful
     Than any I have known
      So hold me to your heart my Holy David
      And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      I swear that I will be…

And when the night is lonely
And the shadow’s running high
If I shot my bow into the dark
Would you swear to never leave my side
And when my journey stumbles
And I’ve fallen on my sword
If I swore to be your Jonathan
Would you swear with all your heart to be my Lord?

      Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
     Than any brother could
      There’s a water that is thicker
     Than the purest drop of blood
      There’s a love that is more wonderful
     Than any I have known
      So hold me to your heart my Holy David
      And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      I swear that I will be…


A Journey Through the Book of Job (Part 12): Job 40:1-14

celebration, a poem

for Walt Whitman

and I will celebrate with you,
am honoured to partake of this
your glorious noble design:

I will sing and I will dance and
share your cells, your ions, atoms,
fill my lungs with our biology.

and like you, madman, would I could
unveil the crystals of the snow,
or surge, an atom on the wind:

open wide the stained-glass gates of
morning dew drop on the grass, to
find within a silhouette of life.

and I shall be a pedagogue
of all humanity—a tear
of crystal on the face of joy:

I will sing and I will shout and
rend the morning air with razor
words, ephemeral, a vigil in the night.

and so this gift of language is
to celebrate, indicative
of inarticulate, our humanness:

we are but a passing of the
myst’ry breathed upon the soil of
earth—a blade of grass, a wisp of cloud.

and fire at dawn awakes the dome
of azure life, shall greet us as
we revel in our passing breath:

with bells and cymbals, tambourine,
the clamoring gift of language,
psalms to wake the dawn and fill our lives.

and ‘till the passing passes me,
and offers up His ions to
the next, I celebrate with you:

ripples of concentric joy, the
pebbles of our soul shattering
serene the glinting lake of life.

Thistle and Thorn, a poem


When I was just a little boy
My father taught me how to work with him
Breathing life out of the dust
Till my hands were bruised and torn.
Somehow his love redeemed the curse
Because just so long as he was there with me
I didn’t notice it was thistle
Or that they were his thorns.

And then when I was twenty-one
I waited tables for my schooling
Serving life in smoky rooms
Till the wee hours of the morn.
Somehow a joy redeemed the curse
Because with all the laughter we had there
I never guessed that was my thistle
Or that they were my—

     thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
     Watered by the sweat of my brow.
     It isn’t much to give,
     The simple work of simple hands
     But what I have I give to you now.

And then a child was on the way
So I stood up in a classroom
Learning life out of my books
Till the lessons were well-worn.
Somehow his call redeemed the curse
Because with all the lives that I touched there
I didn’t know that was my thistle
Or that those were my—

     Thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
     Watered by the sweat of my brow
     It isn’t much to give,
     The simple work of simple hands
     But what I have I give to you now.

Now child, you’re almost all grown up
And the world's spread out before you:
Will you build or will you heal?
What feats will you perform?
O, let his love redeem the curse
And just so long as it is done for him
He’ll make sure they’re never thistles
And they won’t just come up thorns.

A Journey through the Book of Job (Part 11): Job 38:39-39:30

The Fallen Robin's Nest, a poem

Tightly-wound wisps
Of winter-gathered grass
Wrapped warmly round
A bright blue brood of eggs—

     Or so I must assume.

The eggs are long since gone,
Their delicate cradle clattered
To the sidewalk far below
(By what calamity
Or for what sacred purpose
I may never know).

Did he who kept his holy vigil
Over half a million plague-wrung final breaths
Also watch this humbly-feathered bower as it fell—
Does he see it now,
Discarded there in the streaming runnels
Of an early spring rain?

     So I must assume,

Assuming that the primal passion
Of a mother fluttering home
To find no chicks remain that she might
Gather together beneath her brooding wing—
That it must also sting
With His, for ours,
Knowing that our best laid plans
Do not gang aft agley
But for a holy reason.

Come Out of Her, O My People, a devotional thought

In Revelation 18 we come across St. John's agonized account of the fall of the “City of Babylon” (18:1-3), which is depicted as a "great prostitute" riding a "seven-headed beast with a blasphemous name."  As best as I can tell, the "Adulterous Queen of Babylon" is a cipher for the City of Rome, the capital of the Empire in John’s day. And in the apocalyptic vision of Revelation, the Roman Empire is itself is symbolic of any and all “empire-building projects” that set themselves up in opposition to the Reign of God, the way the Roman Empire had done in John's day. 

This a deeper thought than you could unpack in a short devotional, maybe, but after reading through the long list of the “luxuries of Babylon” we find in Revelation 18—the gold, silver, precious stones, food, spices, horses, chariots and fine clothing—all of which are “in one hour laid waste!” (18:17)—it left me wondering. John seems convinced that there is a spiritual reality, lurking behind all that wealth and its accumulation—a reality that would leave you trembling if you could see it plainly—a reality best envisioned as a promiscuous queen riding a death-spewing chimera, intoxicating the nations with her corruption (18:7). 

That’s what was really on display when your average Roman strolled down to market and bought or sold on any given day in the Roman Empire. And, like I say, it leaves me wondering: what spiritual realities lurk behind the social structures that we take for granted in prosperous, brightly-lit modern day Canada— the political, economic, or technological "powers" that we have to do with—and as Christians, are we as in tune to them, as John was in his day?

David, a poem

Every sermon about King David
That I’ve ever heard
Explaining how we might have emulated
Him in his quest for the heart of the Lord,
Has chastened us to dwell upon
His faithful oath to Jonathan,
His five smooth stones before the warrior of Gath
Even the day he spied on Ms. Uriah in the bath—
Think about his contrite heart, they said,
When all was brought to light—
The pious things we know he did
To set things right.

And yet: for the life of me I can’t recall
A preacher ever asking us to mimic all
The severed hands he piled on
The bloody ground by the pool of Hebron
Or all the rows of murdered Moabites
He measured out the day he won the fight.
And even worse, no mention of
His constant wrestling for a holy word
That might express his yearning love
For the goodness he had tasted in the Lord—
The bitter agony it took to show it,
His burning heart’s desire to be a warrior-poet.

Sleeping in the Rain, a poem

There is a thrilling something
And yet so soothing
About nestling down to sleep
In the rain beneath a tent flap,
Knowing it will keep
You safe and dry,
And yet the steady slap
And patter at the fly
Assuring you how very fragile
The whole arrangement is.

If only we could keep that grace
When all the tents are put away
To learn to measure out our days,
Embracing our fragility
With the same unlikely peace
And with such perfect ease.

Pain, a poem

With what trembling did aching Job
Stand before the whirlwind,
Hand across his gaping mouth
To render his complaint?

He tried—Lord knows how hard he tried—
To slip away unrecognized,
To nurse his humble agony
And play the wounded saint.

But no one who has dared to speak
To you about the world’s hurts
Can drop the thing so easily,
Once lifted in lament.

You summon us to take our stand
And state our case with girded hearts
Then hold us till you’ve heard us out
And all the pain is spent.

Holy Saturday, a poem

The hardest part
Of Holy Saturday
Is the long and bitter
Holding of the breath
With no knowing
When we might exhale
Or how the stone-cold corpse
Will ever dance again with sheer delight
On an inexplicably discarded grave
When at last we do.

Good Friday, a poem

Tonight the lintel of the universe
Will bear the sacred smudge of blameless blood;
Tonight the hand of death will pass us by,
Brooding but stayed to see the bloodstained wood.
The Holy First-Born Son will bear our curse
Tonight, his cup mingled with our wormwood,
And the shining host of heaven will hide its eye
Loathe to recall the death that made this Friday good.
And somewhere in a silent church tonight
Where no one gathered and no praise was rung
Perhaps the angels still are weeping at the sight:
The place left empty and the cross unsung.
     Thank God that even if our worship failed
     There still was blood for us on the lintel of the world.