Extract from a letter to a friend… (March 2007)
It was through a fellow student and friend called Mike that I met Andy, a cool guy with intense eyes and a shock of wiry hair. He had a great attic pad, with psychedelic posters on the wall including Hendrix, Viking goddesses, heavy metal, etc. It was he who introduced Mike and myself to the concept of metamorphic Christianity, though he didn’t call it that. This was completely unexpected to me – having so recently left ‘christianity’ behind me, here was the real thing. Visiting me in Edinburgh, Andy and I ended up in front of a picture of Christ with the words “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no-one comes to the Father but through me.” Andy said to me “Do you believe that?” I was silent, for I had to admit I wasn’t sure. Many were the nights when we sat up through the small hours, listening to Handel or Hendrix, and looking at each other to see what we might see. I started to get different faces (prosopa), on Andy in particular; these could be human or divine, and might shift as fast as the speed of thought, but sometimes would still to a Christ-like appearance. The walls would regularly dissolve in golden light. One night I went downstairs to relieve myself – there was an icon of the Madonna and Child on the wall; as I stood there I couldn’t help gazing at the icon. Suddenly from being a flat solid, it became three dimensional; to be more precise it was the face of the Christ-child which became three-dimensional, not ‘solid’, but holy & living Light, and I felt a strong force hitting my forehead. I’ve no doubt this was a sign or communication from the Lord, a direct proof of His incredible reality, and an answer to the question. As you may imagine I felt deeply awed.
It was through Andy that we first heard about Jim Overbeck and, not long after, we made the first of several visits to him in Birmingham. A couple of Jim’s sayings had filtered down the grapevine, heralding the power of his vision and thought; one of these was “God is His own iconoclast”, which, given my upbringing, seemed pertinent to me. There was no hint in my father’s religion of anything transformational. Jim’s view on this is uncompromising – namely that the priesthood “specifically guard against the Vision of God”.
On arriving at his flat, he greeted us in a homely way. He had immediate likeability and great charm, though with an edge – an underlying toughness, a directness in the look, and with a powerful presence about him. He seemed to have the power to divine one’s innermost soul, someone who read one’s heart as well as one’s mind. When alone with him for a few minutes I had the impertinence to ask him, “Who are you?” In fact this turned out to be a very pertinent question, as you will see if you read his book; however, he replied “Let’s just say I’m a theologian”.
When conversation turned to the theological, he spoke with absolute authority. During the evening I asked Jim to explain the Apollinarian heresy – one of the things I’d read about previously. He answered with a ‘thumbnail analogy’ of two plates of glass stuck together, and then, with a meaningful glance at Sue, his wife, said, “There’s a cure for academia.” For the rest of the evening silence predominated; there was much Light and a blissful state, though as far as I could see nothing miraculous happened, which I’d half been expecting.
Soon after this, my girl-friend Linda came to stay with me. I was studying for my finals, and regularly sitting up late with Andy & Mike & others, so perhaps it’s no wonder that things didn’t always go smoothly. She joined us some evenings and I think she was courageous to have stuck with it. Then one evening she and I had an experience that seemed to be our Pentecost – flames of holy fire descended on us.
In retrospect I puzzle over my own doubts, but by then she had told me she was pregnant. We decided to get married and three months later a girl was born to us to whom Linda gave the name Yamilla – meaning ‘Little Flower’ in Thai. We were still living in a shared house, and I thought we should have a place of our own. I’d found an empty house in a nearby village, and basically I changed the locks and we squatted. I should have stopped to consider whether this was a wise move, for the house had no heating bar an open fireplace, and winter was coming on. Yamilla died in a cot death at the age of five months, and we were distraught beyond words. I blamed myself, Linda blamed herself and ‘normal’ life became almost intolerable. Now I wish that I could have been less self-absorbed and given Linda the love and support that she so badly needed. We separated for a while, Linda going to stay with friends. I moved to London and found accommodation through an old schoolmate.
Later, Linda came to join me, but life in London was tough – we got a free room in a Fawlty Towers hotel in exchange for running the place at weekends; this had its lighter moments, but we were cramped for space and soon moved out into separate rooms nearby. During this period we made a number of friends, and through one of these I got the chance to buy some Old-Time Medicine – the pure stuff they had in the 1960s before it was made illegal. One night – it was Valentine’s night – Linda and I took it. At first nothing happened. Then in an instant everything changed – I looked at Linda and she flew across the room to me – don’t ask me to explain how. Suddenly, the Lord Jesus was there, present yet veiled, as it were descending from clouds, in a white light that might be described as palest golden, the walls and roof of the room becoming insubstantial. In an instant, and as one, Linda and I were kneeling on the floor and saying ‘Forgive us, Lord’. Then He seemed to leave, and our feeling was one of loss and sadness. And then He briefly returned; and this was as a blessing and a great comfort.
I have little recollection of what followed this, but I felt called to move to Birmingham and, soon after, Linda followed me there. With our marriage in a precarious state, we were to live in close proximity to Jim, Sue and Ralph for about four years, part of the period when they went into business with the Blitzgeist Bookshop. Dropping into the shop became a regular thing – it was a haven of golden Light – but I didn’t fully realise the stresses involved for Jim. The story was told of one lady who accused him of being arrogant, to which he replied, “Madam, if you knew my true humility it would freak you out.”
Perhaps because of my preoccupation and guilt feelings over Yamilla’s death, I didn’t benefit from my time there as I could have; but there was one evening in particular which I’ll mention. I’d put on a record of the Inkspots, and things had reached the point where earthly things seemed quaintly ridiculous. Suddenly this sublime quartet were singing ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a flame in your heart’, and Jim and Ralph rocked with laughter. We all caught the humour and laughed uncontrollably, and in that moment I saw Jim with Ralph beside him, as shining gods on high, sort of ‘joined at the hip’ – and I thought of the phrase ‘the laughter of the immortals’ which Herman Hesse used in one of his novels. In retrospect this reminds me of when the Lord had visited Linda and myself in London, with that same light and ‘height’ – putting this into words isn’t easy.
You may imagine then how, many years down the line, I was intrigued to hear that Jim had written a book and I looked forward to reading it with intense expectation; nevertheless I was completely unprepared for its sheer power…
(postscript, July 2021)
Reading Jim’s book has helped greatly in bringing me to the understanding that, despite our faults, we are indeed called to be gods in Christ, and that this is something accessible now, in this earthly life. He knows us all, He knows my failings, and yet by His bountiful grace I experience His serene golden Light, sometimes in prayer, sometimes unexpectedly in quiet moments. In this Light one’s being is raised up and healed of all stress and imperfection – all Praise to Him! It is my humble wish to be able to shine a little of this immaculate Light into the world, and thereby help others find this same “peace which passes all understanding”.