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 Fresh Look at the Prophet Daniel

Last week I shared some thoughts about an often-overlooked detail in the story of the Road to Emmaus, and the possibility that, counter to generations of tradition, the two disciples that Jesus encountered that day might not both have been male, that they might have been a married couple. That post received an unexpected level of engagement at my church, so much so that I thought I’d share another “overlooked detail” that I came across in my daily Bible reading, that maybe sheds some interesting light on an familiar story.

The story in question involves the prophet Daniel, one of the best loved prophets in the Old Testament. Many of us have probably heard the stories of Daniel interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, or reading the writing on the wall, or braving the lion’s den, but the other day I was reading Daniel Chapter 1 and I saw something I never noticed before.

In verse 1:3, we are told that Daniel was brought to Babylon from Jerusalem during the exile, and that upon arriving in the palace he was placed in the custody of Ashpenaz, the chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s court officials. That is how the NIV renders the verse, anyways. The NASB reads the same, though it includes a footnote clarifying that the word could be translated as the “chief of the king’s eunuchs.” This is, incidentally, how the old King James version translates it.

Was Ashpenaz actually the chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace eunuchs? If so, what would that have meant for Daniel, to have been placed in Ashpenaz’s custody?

The word in question is sârı̂ys, a Hebrew word that comes from a root word that literally means “to castrate.” It’s the word used in Esther 2:14 to describe Shaashgaz, for example, who was the eunuch in charge of the King’s harem, and certainly in the context of that story—which shares many similarities with Daniel, by the way—in that story it is highly probable that Shaashgaz, as the keeper of the king’s harem, was a eunuch in the literal sense of the word.

The word sârı̂ys can also simply mean an “official” or “officer of the court,” however, with no implications as to the person’s reproductive status. In the story of Joseph and Potiphar, for example, we’re told that Potiphar was a sârı̂ys of Pharaoh, and later we discover that he is married, and may even have had a daughter (Gen 41:45). In that story, it’s not likely that Potiphar was a eunuch in the technical sense, which is why most English translations call him an “official” in Pharoah’s court.

In some cases, as in the story of Esther above, the context itself can help us decide how the word is being used. We know, for example, that in 2 Kings 20:18, when the Jewish King Hezekiah sins by showing off his wealth and military might to the envoys from Babylon, the prophet Isaiah warns him that, as a result, his children will be taken away and made to be sârı̂yim in the palace of the Babylonian king. Given the severity of this threat, the context suggests that Babylon will “make eunuchs” of Hezekiah’s sons in the literal sense, not simply make them into court officials. It is possible that this was a common practice—or at least, not uncommon—for Babylon to castrate its prisoners of war before making them servants of the court.

So what about Daniel? Does the term sârı̂ys in this story mean more than just “an official?” Was Daniel literally “made into a eunuch” when he came to serve under Ashpenaz, the head of the king's eunuchs?

Admittedly, the final answer is inconclusive (hence the NASB’s footnote leaving both possibilities), but my hunch, for what it’s worth, is that he was.

I say this partly because of the similarities between the story of Daniel and the story of Esther, another Jewish captive who experienced sexual violence at the hands of the Persian court (though admittedly Esther’s sexual violence was of a different nature). I also say it because of the way 2 Kings 20:18 seems to foreshadow Daniel’s situation so directly.

It would be easy to make a much bigger deal out this detail than the context warrants; Daniel being “made a eunuch” does not make his situation the same as people who identify as what now adays we might call a “sexual minority.” At least, not exactly the same. If Daniel was a eunuch, it was not sex-change surgery he received. He was violently mutilated by an oppressive empire. It would be anachronistic, I think, to over-lay his story onto the experience of people today who identify as trans, or experience gender dysphoria.

At the same time, it would be easy to make too small a deal out of this detail, too; and that, I think, is the greater danger. In Deuteronomy 23:1, we’re told quite explicitly that no one who has been castrated is to be permitted in the assembly of God’s people. It’s not clear what should be done with them, but it’s clear they are to be “excluded from the assembly.” And yet, if my reading of Daniel’s story is accurate, then in Daniel we have at least one instance of someone who falls under the Deuteronomy 23 prohibition, but instead of being excluded he is, rather, used powerfully by God.

There’s a line in Daniel 10:11 that I’ve always found to be very poignant. Daniel has received a horrific vision of the future and is in deep distress. He’s been praying and mourning for three days straight, when a divine visitor finally comes to comfort him with the interpretation of what he’s seen. Before this theophanic messenger does that, however, he starts by saying: “You, Daniel, are ‘highly esteemed.’”

That’s how the NIV renders it, at least, but I don’t think it’s strong enough. In Hebrew the word is châmad, a word that literally means “desirable,” or “precious.” It’s the word used to describe precious jewels in 2 Chronicles 20:25, precious gold in Ezra 8:27. In Psalm 19:9-10 it’s the word used to describe “the judgements of the Lord”—they are more desirable (châmad) than precious gold.

The use of this word to describe Daniel in 10:11 would hit you in the gut with its beauty, if, in Daniel 1:3, it really was the case that he had been castrated when he was brought into the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. Because if he was, then according to the Law of Moses, his status as someone whose body lacked “full sexual congruity with his gender,” so to speak, would mean that he should have been excluded from the community, cut off from life with God (no pun intended).

And yet, Daniel discovers just exactly the opposite: his divine messenger assures him that he is deeply loved—desirable even, and precious—regardless any sexual violence he may have experienced at the hands of the oppressor, and whether or not his body was “sexually whole” (for lack of a better way of saying it). Those things would not determine his worth in God’s eyes, or, more importantly, his desirability as a servant of the Lord.

Neither do they determine our worth in God’s eyes, if we are in circumstances similar to Daniel’s: if we have experienced sexual violence, perhaps, that has left a permanent scar on us, if our bodies do not align wholly with our sense of who we are, if there is something about our bodies that feels to us “un-whole,” and we think, as a result, there’s no place for us in community. If I’m on to anything in my reading of Daniel’s story, none of those things make us any less precious to God, or God less able to use us powerfully for his purposes.

0 comments: