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

The Halloween Files (Part V): Zombie Apocalypses, Then and Now

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The video for Michael Jackson's Thriller came out when I was in Grade 4.  I know this with certainty because I can remember quite clearly my Grade 4 Halloween party at school.  As part of the festivities, our Grade 4 teacher thought it would be a fun idea to watch this new music video that was all the rage, by a rising star named Michael Jackson.

For those who forget (or never saw) the thrilling Zombie-dance, you can check it out here.  Thirty years later, Thriller still has that magical something-or-other about it, despite the light years of sophistication that now stand between film-making-special-effects then and now.  Michael Jackson's necromantic choreography may seem somewhat campy today, but I confess here that I came home from that Grade 4 Halloween party absolutely terrified. I lay awake that night, fully expecting an undead horde to burst through the floor of my bedroom as per the zombies that swarm Ola Ray at the 11 min. 11 sec. mark of the video.

I survived that night, of course, but in the continued spirit of confession, let me say that to this day, Michael Jackson's yellow werewolf eyes still send a thrill of terror through my chest. 

But here's the thought I'm mulling over today, as I practice thinking theologically about Halloween this month and all.  Released in 1983, Thriller opens with the following disclaimer from Michael Jackson himself (who was a practicing Jehovah's Witness at the time):  Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.  

Three decades later, I find this disclaimer very telling.

Because zombies are experiencing a bit of a renaissance these days, from what I understand.  Witness, for instance, the success of The Walking Dead TV show,  or the increasing popularity of "zombie walks," or the recent film Contagion, which some reviewers have called "the most believable zombie movie ever made."  But what's curious about this resurgence of interest in the living dead is that, back in 1983 our collective imagination associated zombies with the occult, whereas now-a-days we associate them more with the fallout of some technological catastrophe or global pandemic.  (This is, at least, how serious academic research on the prospects of a real Zombie apocalypse tackles the issue.)

The original zombie numbered among the "undead"; i.e. it was a re-animated corpse, raised up by some dark art or other: voodoo or necromancy or magic.  The modern zombie numbers among the "walking dead," that is, a still-animated corpse, contagious with death because of some biological disaster or other, be it nuclear, bacterial or genetic. 

And herein lies the terror of the modern zombie.  Unlike vampires and werewolves, they are still conceivable to us, even in our scientifically scoured and technologically dis-enchanted world.  In this regard, the shift in the zombie archetype-- from occult horror to biohazard-- reveals something theologically significant about the modern world.  To the extent that the monsters we imagine are really just a projection of our deepest cultural fears, it's certainly suggestive that today's zombie is no longer a demonic horror but a monster of our own making.  In a rationalistic world that has (for all intents and purposes) disavowed the reality of all things spiritual (good or evil), an occult terror like necromancy has lost its potency.  But the possibility that the technological wonders we depend on so deeply may actually erupt into an apocalyptic horror that reduces civilization as we know it to a staggering corpse--that's a thought to keep grown men awake at night.

So what does the mythos of the modern zombie teach us?  In short:  once we feared the devil; today we fear ourselves.

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