Introducing Mari Perron, the Center for A Course of Love’s Board Members, and ACOL Community Resources.

Mari Perron

Being the first receiver of A Course of Love has been a humbling experience. Something happens as we receive A Course of Love. At first, whatever it is that happens can be very confusing. All I knew was that I’d been profoundly changed. This is why, when I began to meet others who were as affected by this Course as I had been, it became such a bonding experience. It was rather like groping in the dark – but at least we were doing it together. Something was different, something was new, something that felt like the answer to an essential yearning had occurred, and yet, since it defied classification or mental understanding, it felt very odd. That this was what was meant to happen eventually became clear, and that was relieving, but not an ending point.

New doors are always opening. There is no end point called “accomplishment” because living wholeheartedly and newly and truly is the continual accomplishment that we begin to share and cherish.

Alongside the many companions who have accompanied me, I noticed how life was slowly righting itself, as if it had been off-kilter for a long while in a way that had gone unnoticed and yet could be felt. Slowly, we observed that various aspects of living that had been divided from each other were being brought together. There was a unification going on and it was resting under the canopy of a new way of knowing. Life was beginning to take on a less divided and a more seamless nature. All was being held together within the embrace of love . . . us too. “I am” was becoming “we are.”

This is why this Center is devoted to “us.” What we can’t be alone we can be together.

Board Members: Mari Perron

When A Course of Love was initially published in its Combined Volume, one of the first areas that was given attention was a new website for A Course of Love.

A Course of Love had been a “small” book for many years. The first publication of The Course (the first book only) occurred in 2001, by New World Library. (I had only just completed receiving The Dialogues at the time.) The Treatises were then published in four separate volumes. Finally, I self-published The Dialogues and it became available too. A few years later, when the New World Library edition went out of print, I brought the books together in a three-volume set. These I called “the blue books.” As soon as websites became easier to create, I started my first Course of Love website.

After A Course of Love was published in the Combined Volume in 2014, one of the first things publisher Glenn Hovemann and I did together, was work on a new website. The Course of Love site was geared more to those new to the Course, and I was aching to explore the areas that become exciting to a seasoned reader. Thus, my focus here was on Dialogue and Expressions of readers.

In the few years since then, A Course of Love’s readership has become a world-wide audience, and many are ready for what is beyond the book. Now I have started a new website: mariperron.com, to fulfill those urges that I once hoped to meet on this site. . .the movement beyond the book to dialogue and creation of the new.

Mari Perron website:  https://www.mariperron.com/

Below is the way I expressed that urge four years ago when this site was started:

In the years since I completed the receiving of A Course of Love, I’ve continuously sought for ways to express the inexpressible. What I’ve found most consistently is that what is truly felt needs expression to, as my friend and ACOL reader Michael Mark says, “meet itself in the world.” This expression includes the full range of what is felt, from the pain of separation, to the joy of union, to all the in between states that are experienced as we become who we truly are. I am most moved to share and encourage feeling states of being, creativity, and passionate engagements with all that joins our humanity and divinity in a united voice for love.

The “new way of knowing” that is suggested in A Course of Love, combined with its call to be who we are, is what I find most radical and compelling. The two are intricately tied together, making the sharing of experiences a crucial element in the way we come to know what we know, come to be who we are now, and come to partake in the mystery that is creation of the new. As pioneers of the new I understand that a dismantling of “life as it is” often happens. I have experienced this firsthand and desire to support a feeling of connection through the acceptance of all the stages of unlearning, healing, and movement to new life.

Michael Mark, Vice President

I was fortunate to confront at a relatively early age the inadequacies and contradictions of my self-directed knowing, and the suffering to which they would inevitably lead. The answer to these difficulties came in A Course in Miracles, which I read and studied exclusively on my own for nearly a decade. The corrections to my thinking and knowing that came of this period were profound, but eventually I began to think about “life after ACIM.” What is it like to participate in Creation itself? What is possible when we learn to extend our sacred heart into this world? I was surprised around this time to discover an emphasis by other readers of ACIM on minimizing the importance of our present, and of the lives we currently have.

In answer to my question, “I wonder if Jesus has inspired other works?” I found A Course of Love. I was ecstatic and grateful to receive this answer to my prayer, and to find such a rich body of wisdom about the possibility of opening our hearts to creative transformation in the here and now.

Michael is a utility systems engineer and a writer. His essays on ACIM and ACOL have appeared in the anthology A Course of Miracles And… as well as Miracles Magazine and The Embrace. Michael’s short stories have been published in various literary journals including Tahoma Literary Review, Delay Fiction and New Limestone Review. He blogs about various topics at Embracing Forever.

Michael DiConti, Treasurer

While I had been blessed with good health, material security, a loving family, and especially good luck, twenty years ago I realized I lacked the inner peace I noticed in others I admired. Now, twenty years later, A Course Of Love represents for me the hopeful culmination of a twenty-year stumble toward this longed for peace.

My progress accelerated with A Course In Miracles, discovered 7 years ago. I had discovered the Truth! Yet I wasn’t willing to fully connect the new knowledge to my heart, reluctant to address my fears. I was like a soldier who meditates at night.

Then in early 2019, lightning struck again with my discovery of A Course Of Love, and this time, my heart was enveloped. Soon thereafter, during my first reading of Mirari: The Way of the Marys, I was inspired to reach out to Mari Perron, offering my assistance. And she obliged. Now retired, I am blessed to be finally working for love, rather than for money. At the same time, I’m now facing and focused on dismantling my fears, and I feel Peace is finally emerging–I want to share it!

Professionally, after a first job working for a large accounting firm, I settled in for a career with non-profits, where for over 30 years I managed the operations for a varied set of employers. I have an MBA in Accounting/Finance  from UCLA, a PhD in Political Science from the John Hopkins University, and my most recent position before retiring was CFO for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Christie Lord

I understood since the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome nearly 25 years ago, that my “identity” as I had previously “known” and experienced myself, was about to be changed forever. Feeling lost and without a guide, A Course of Love (ACOL) came to me at just the right time. ACOL cannot be read; it must be absorbed, in a similar way that oven cleaner “works” inside your stove when left overnight. Slowly, the alchemy melts away all that is of fear and leaves only what is essential; the memory and experience of Love. ACOL is for anyone experiencing an “identity crisis” and seeking guidance and certainty in these times.

Christie Lord is a Spiritual Director and Myers Briggs consultant, and was a member of the first Course of Love group.

Emeritus Board Members – Wise Advisors

Mary Love

Mary and Mari

I am moved by the simplest aspects of life which I consider to be the most profound. This embodies how we communicate, even with words unspoken. This is how the human condition moves within me.

I have seen time and time again, how all connection is really a form of communication. I am forever altered by this realization. My life experience with the loss of a child illuminated this kind of beauty.

I am moved by the simplest aspects of life which I consider to be the most profound. This embodies how we communicate, even with words unspoken. This is how the human condition moves within me.

I have seen time and time again, how all connection is really a form of communication. I am forever altered by this realization. My life experience with the loss of a child illuminated this kind of beauty.

Mary Love writes (see her contribution to The Grace Trilogy https://acourseoflove.org/maris-other-books/) and has done video for the past 20 years focusing on healing, connection and the beauty of remembrance in life. Mary believes in all levels of communication. Most importantly in the physical to the divine.

Christina Strutt

Christina Strutt discovered ACOL in 2009 due to an article run in Miracles Magazine. She contacted me and we became fast friends. This photo was taken when she accompanied me to my first Community Miracles Center event in New York City, in 2015. She moderated the first ACOL Facebook group and developed guidelines for sharing. Along with her husband, Colin Strutt (developer), she hosts the search facility for Discover ACOL on this site, and another for the Way of Marys:

Explore at: https://www.wayofmary.com

I’m forever grateful to Mary and Christina for their contributions.