There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. – Luke Beling Releases New Single.

A while back we asked Michael Erfort to check out this new singer songwriter to see what he thought. Since then he has become one of his biggest fans.

This is the review of his first single from his new upcoming album. Luke has become quite fancy since his first release and even had one of his songs on Greys Anatomy.

REVIEW: MICHAEL ERFORT – “that dark horse:.

“Luke Beling’s voice is one of the most distinctive voices I have heard. There is an ache in there that will transform kumbaya into a sad song. This does not mean Beling is a miserable bastard. Rather, it affects narration in the sense that it appears the narrator is narrating from that vantage point where the “ache” is always visible. That may be true to an extent but listen carefully and you will hear the antidote to that ache being revealed. Beling is an observer, and he sees being human as the greatest gift ever. In fact, the gift is so great that he seems to be overwhelmed by it and may even feel undeserving of it.  Beling’s first single , “Shining Like The Sun” from his forthcoming album, captures his sharp observation skills perfectly. It’s a beautiful song featuring Silicone Boone that touches on many existential issues. Beling sums the creation of the song as follows:

“I wrote Shining Like the Sun inspired by one of my favorite quotes from Cistercian monk Thomas Merton: “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . . 

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.

As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.” (Thomas Merton)

I first encountered Merton’s writing about twenty years ago while living in rural Kentucky. During that period of my life, I struggled with religious scrupulosity. Discovering Merton’s work and being welcomed into a community that challenged the American Folk Religion rhetoric, I began my journey into new ways of thinking. “Shining Like the Sun” is a meditation on this.

Out now on all platforms.