I first met the Christian visionary, writer, philosopher, mathematician and artist Jim Overbeck, his wife Sue and Ralph when I was in my final year at Liverpool University where I was studying French and Spanish. This was in 1984 and I was at that time the girlfriend of NG who came from Birmingham and had met them in their bookshop Blitzgeist in Harborne. NG really wanted me to meet Jim and I knew from what he had told me that he believed Jim to be a truly remarkable person with a deep knowledge of theology and first-hand experience of God.
To give you some background, I had been brought up in Portsmouth, my grandparents attended the local Methodist Church and all through my childhood I had attended the Sunday School and the Church. I suppose I was a believer from a very young age and my grandparents and the people of the Church they attended were dedicated to helping others who were less fortunate than themselves, in the spirit of serving God. The memory of their faith in God and their dedication has stayed with me all through my life.
When I was a teenager, I found myself sitting in the Religious Studies A Level Class (I was not taking Religious Studies A Level) but I felt that I could not leave Religious Studies behind, I suppose that I felt that I wanted to be close to God and to learn as much as I could about Christ’s life in the Gospels.
The teacher was Mr. E.B. , interestingly he had been the teacher of my father when he was at school in the 1950s. Mr E. B. was a very kindly and Christian man (he loved C.S Lewis) and he taught us about the life of Christ. I remember him telling us and reading with us Christ’s miracles, changing the water into wine at Cana, healing paralytics, feeding the 5000, Christ walking on the water, healing the man blind from birth, raising Lazarus from the dead. He also taught us about the Beatitudes in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, I remembered “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. I knew then that I wanted to experience this purity, and the presence of God and that I was a Christian and that has stayed with me always.
When I was about 19 years old I can say that I had my first experience of what I can describe as seeing the light of God and experiencing the divine personally. I was with N.G, we had gone to a Christian music festival together. One night I got talking about God with one of the Group Leaders of the Christian organization (Crusaders) that we were with. While we were talking the room we were in became full of very bright light, and I realized that me and him were together in the presence of God. He had decided to show us this light, and I felt lifted away from daily reality and the world for quite some time. I knew then that God can make Himself known to us in person and that He had wanted to show me this, I am not sure of the reason why, but I am thankful to have witnessed this and I have never forgotten it. Perhaps him allowing me to see this was connected to what came next but it is not up to me to say that for certain.
Moving on I shortly went on to study and live in Mexico for 10 months. I have to say that I was in no way prepared for what I saw or experienced and returned to England in a very disturbed state. This went on throughout my last year of University and culminated in me deciding at the age of 21 that I could not go on with my life any more. In my desperation, I went to see my friend N.G., who I felt was the only person I wanted to see when I was in that state of despair.
This was the second time that God then showed his light to me in great power, this time I have to say that I know that He saved my life. I realized that He had always been there and would always be there, as Christ had said “I am the way, the truth and the life “ (John 14:6) I had felt so incredibly alone, I had felt that God had abandoned me and to be honest I knew that I could not live my life without Him. I cannot describe how overjoyed I was, in the true sense of the word joy, I realized that God was not absent even though the world was and is a truly wicked place. (Checking the word Joy I found that it comes from the Holy Spirit, abiding in God’s presence and from hope in His word). This encounter with God also made me feel “pure” again, I felt that I had gone a long way from God’s presence and I could not bear it any longer.
This enabled me to go back and finish my studies at Liverpool University.
Around this time N.G. introduced me to Jim, Sue and Ralph. I knew that they were very important to him, I had no idea that I would become so much closer to them and end up sharing my life with them and that the three of them would become my dearest friends on my life’s journey. I knew that Jim had studied Theology and Philosophy and had had many first-hand experiences of God, and deification, and had entered into states of knowledge of and union with God, and that Sue and Ralph had also had many of these heavenly and divine experiences too. Jim had told me that when he was living in Banbury with Sue when he was young Christ walked into his room and that that was the only time he had felt perfection in his life.
As I got to know Jim, Sue & Ralph much more Jim told me many stories about his experiences of the divine. I understand Theosis to mean a process of transformation which leads to likeness or union with God. Listening to Jim then and now he has had and continues to have many experiences of theosis, and has produced incredible writings in which he talks about what has happened to him, (his book The Autobiography of God Almighty) , and in the years he has been in Italy (since 2006) amazing paintings which can be seen in his Gallery Arte del Fulmine (Art of the Thunderbolt) in Dolcedo. (Including walls with murals of Heaven and Hell).
When I had become closer to Jim (this was in the early 1990s) , I had a very holy experience with him where I saw him become Christ crucified on the cross, with the crown of thorns and bleeding from His wounds. I do not know why God allowed me to see this but this is what happened. I was allowed to feel that I was present at Christ’s crucifixion, I know that this seems unbelievably strange but I cannot deny that this is what I saw. This experience is the most important experience of my life. Since then I also saw on several occasions God’s light again mainly with Jim. I know that other friends have had similar experiences and experienced divine occurrences too.
I am writing this hoping that someone who may read what I have written will take note and realize that God may show himself to them also and give them peace and beauty and the knowledge that we can experience God’s presence and participate in it, in this process of theosis. I know that knowing the love of God is the answer to our broken existence in the world, it is impossible to look at the world and to believe that it is alright without Him.
I remember that Jim told me that sin is the absence of love, I often think of this and think that this must be the origin of suffering in the world.