Start your adventure. This is for you. This is about you.
You are Welcome Here
A Course of Love was, for me, the start of the adventure of a life time. To say that it changed my life would be a colossal understatement. Its range has taken me all over the map, covering so much terrain I should have had some kind of a spiritual passport. It came to me when I was 43 years old and I’m 63 now.
I feel like I can’t stand at the starting gate to call you to the finish line. I have to cross that threshold, as will you, and step into a future yet to be created.
On this page, I give those of you who are starting Your adventure, a few links and hints to aid you.
I know Jesus wants ACOL to be an experience for each of us. He says to each person who reads it: This is for you. This is about you. And when you’re done with it, he doesn’t tell you it’s about something else. It will still be about you.
In God’s idea of you is all that is known about you. . . . In God’s idea of you is the pattern of the universe. . . . You were birthed in unison with God’s idea of you. . . . Acceptance of your birth in unison with God’s idea of you is acceptance of your Self as co-creator of the pattern of the universe, acceptance of the idea or the story that is you. C:6.22-3
Eventually, Jesus will ask of you what he asks of me: to go beyond the book and bring all you’ve come to know about your Self, from spending all the time you have with him, into your life. . .as you.
It’s “us,” being true selves in the world,
that will create a new world.
This is so needed that we can’t turn our backs on this call.
In “Learning in the Time of Christ,” (currently the addendum of the book) Jesus says that ACOL becomes a beloved alma mater, cherished and returned to as the giver of new life,” a life you are emphatically called to live in love, in union and relationship, in dialogue, and as creators. This is the way we become powerful expressions of love in the world. This is A Course of Love’s promise.
Mary and I hope to share a lot of promise, and a lot of powerful expressions of love and hope and new ideas on this site. You are welcome to hang out here with us. But if you’re new to the book, I’ve included a gathering of quotes I call “A Course of Love’s Promise,” to give you a brief overview, and online resources that will help you find any information you need to begin your adventure.
And I’ll tell you more of mine. I imagine a “History” page somewhere at some point.
A COURSE OF LOVE’S PROMISE
Do not accept this lack of fulfillment of a promise
that has surely been made!
Rejoice that the new time is here
and be ready to embrace it as it embraces you!
~Jesus (T4: 9.6)
Here is a brief summary of some of Jesus’ most enduring words to us, all quotations from A Course of Love:
The Call to Love
We cannot live love apart from one another.
~Jesus (C:26.8)
“The power of love is the cause and effect that will change the world by returning you, and all your brothers and sisters, to who they are in truth. This cannot be done from without but must be done from within. It is the transformation that is caused within that will affect the world without.” Day 10:33
Love is not a principle . . .
Love cannot be learned. C:16.6
Love is the spirit of the wind that animates all form.
Love is spirit, is God, is creation.
Love is a description of the All of All. . .
Love is the state of unity. C:16.7
Love is life giving and life supporting. Day 7.3
[L]ove is not opposed to logic but returns true reason to the mind and heart. Day 10.37
God’s love is your love. Your love is the love of God. God is love. Day 13.4
Consciousness began as all feeling and all thought, all of which were of love because love is everything. Day 16.5
Love is the only response. Day 33.8
Love is creation’s genesis. . .. 39.35
God is Love and Love is God. 40.14
The call to union and relationship
You will never fully understand what unity means,
but you will come to feel what unity means,
and this I promise you.
~ Jesus (C:13.1)
“The people of the Earth, as well as all that was created, have always been the beloved of God because Love was and is the means of creation. The people of the Earth, as well as all that was created, were created through union and relationship. Creation through union and relationship is still The Way and The Way has come into the time of its fullness.” T4:2.5
Individuating in Unity and Relationship
“With this ability to individuate in unity and relationship comes the greatest gift of all. It is the end of becoming and the beginning of being who you are. With this gift comes the ability to be known and to know. Can you give up the ideal of your separated self in order to be known? In order to know?” Day: 40.30
The end of learning
“[I]t is your difficulty in giving up your attachment to learning through the application of thought and effort that creates the perception of this Course’s difficulty.” A.5
“Two changes of enormous proportions are upon you. The first is the end of learning, the ramifications of which will only slowly occur to your mind and be surprising revelations there. The second is the beginning of sharing in unity, a change that your heart will gladly accept but that your mind, once again, will be continuously surprised to encounter. Take delight in these surprises. Laugh and be joyous. You no longer have a need to figure things out. Surprises cannot be figured out! They are meant to be joyous gifts being constantly revealed. Gifts that need only be received and responded to.” T4:12.5-6
“You have realized now your relationship with the unknown and ceased to fear it. You are, perhaps, even eager now, to move beyond the known to the unknown. You are perhaps eager without fully realizing that this eagerness symbolizes a true ending—an ending within you and within your reality—an ending within your conscious awareness. A true end of learning. This is the first transition, the transition in which you really “get it” that the unknown cannot be taught, laid out on a map, or shown to you by another.” Day 20.2-3
The call to dialogue
Dialogue with Jesus
From this time on, I will respond to you through direct
communication or dialogue rather than through teaching.
This dialogue will. . . be ongoing, and
this is your invitation to participate in this dialogue.
Jesus ~ T4:12.2 & 4
Entering Dialogue with those with whom you’re coming to know:
“Entering the dialogue is the means of sustaining the one voice within the many, the means of sharing your access to unity, the manifestation, in form, of the healed and whole and thus spacious Self.” Day 14.14
“When you fully realize that sharing is necessary you will have entered the dialogue. When you have fully surrendered to the fact that you can’t come to know on your own you will have entered the dialogue. When you fully accept that the voice of the one can be heard in the voice of the many you will have entered the dialogue. When you fully realize that you are in-formed by everything and everyone in creation, you will have entered the dialogue.” Day 15.1
Engaging in Dialogue:
In Day 15, Jesus asks us to engage in dialogue with those who join us on the mountain top. He describes it as a practice in informing and being informed with those who, along with you, have reached a certain level of neutrality.
“What does it mean to practice informing and being informed? It means to join together with others who have the ability to maintain Christ-consciousness in your company. This creates the joining together of spacious Selves. It is a joining without boundaries. You become clear pools flowing into each other. You make your spirits known.” Day 15.12
Creating in Dialogue:
“Creation is a dialogue.” T4:12.34 (see below)
The Call to Create the New.
Creation of the new has begun.
We are an interactive part of this creative act of a loving Creator.
Creation is a dialogue.
Creation—which is God and us in unity—will respond to our responses.
Will respond to what we envision, imagine and desire.
Creation of the new could not begin without you.
~ Jesus T4:12.34
“The nature of a being of love is to bring form to the formless—to bring love into form.”
Day 40.10
Realize that this is a call to love all of yourself. (D:7.11)
ACOL is A Call of Love – A-COL.
A Course of Love’s websites
ACOL’s website is a natural entry point for those wondering about ACOL, and is full of insight and information to let those coming to it newly make the decision to read it, and then to get more deeply involved with others reading it if they so choose. This is crucial. If you are new to A Course of Love, please visit and avail yourself of all the resources it shares. For your ease of searching, links are provided below.
The outreach necessary to connect people, to have ACOL’s message available around the world, and many other essential functions are handled beautifully, and with heart, by Glenn Hovemann and Take Heart Publications. Although Glenn and I prepared all the introductory material for the site together, and I wrote weekly blogs for several years, I have not been as involved recently, while Glenn has given considerable energy to the site. I am appreciative for his attention to ACOL in ways that go far beyond the usual publisher’s role. You may notice this, and his great congeniality and warmth in all he does for ACOL.
Here are links to the site that you may find helpful.
What is ACOL? – https://acourseoflove.org/home-with-acol/
Free Chapters – https://acourseoflove.org/selected-chapters/
ACOL Groups – https://acourseoflove.org/get-connected/
ACOL Store – https://acourseoflove.org/acol-store/
Mari Perron – https://acourseoflove.org/invitation-from-mari/
Center for A Course of Love
The Center was established (in my eyes) so that I could hold this material close even while it’s shared widely. It is beloved to me and to those board members who, along with me, see it as an essential part of what will create a new future. This creation has begun, is increasing, and is set to grow exponentially.
From the Center we Expand and Create the New
This time of “the new” is different than the time of…let’s say…beginning. And so, even while new readers will continually be coming to A Course of Love with hope and expectation, readers prepared by ACOL are beginning their exploration of what lies in this new area beyond the book: in dialogue and creation of the new. I’ll be addressing this on this site, with Mary Love, and with many others who are entering this new time. I have, since the receiving was done, been eager for dialogue and creation of the new. These will now be reflected in this site, and the Center will continue on as the stately matriarch who “holds the center” while the expansion continues.
The Center Website: http://www.centerforacourseoflove.org/
DISCOVER ACOL concordance and search facility http://www.centerforacourseoflove.org/discover-acol/
WAYS TO GIVE – http://www.centerforacourseoflove.org/ways-to-give/
Co-Relate ACIM-ACOL-OE a second search facility to use jointly for ACOL and ACIM’s Original Edition:
The Center also provides funding for “outreach” and “in-reach” in the service of both holding the center and expanding from that center into Dialogue and Creation of the New.
If you have the means, please visit the GIVE page. The new future that we will together be creating, a future of in which Love, and Dialogue, and Creation meld together, is a hugely exciting and essential venture.
We also continue to invite alternate but equally valuable gifts of “expression” for our Expressions Page: http://www.centerforacourseoflove.org/expressions/
Dialogues
From the time of first “receiving” the Dialogues, the very idea of dialogue excited me.
http://www.centerforacourseoflove.org/dialogue/
Visit this page to view my first “dialogues” with friends and readers of ACOL. I LOVED doing them. Much more is to come on this site!
As “this” site grows, the stately matriarch that is the Center (no less important, but fulfilling a different function), won’t be in need of any new bells and whistles (or frequent posts!). Knowing her purpose, she will hold the original intent of ACOL’s creation, and her offerings (of access to the material in the search engines so kindly formed (Christina and Colin Strutt) and granted (by the Course in Miracles Society with the grace of its founders Rev. Reja Joy Green and Tom Whitmore). This is how connections and inter-relationships will grow. Your contributions will provide the safe lodging for our explorations and funds for the time of discovery that will create a new future.