About

The Transition I Never Predicted

I didn’t set out to become a teacher of A Course in Miracles. For most of my adult life, I was building something that looked very different—a career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Monroe, Louisiana, with 27 years of state service in the substance abuse and mental health fields, a small private practice offering therapy and workshops, and an ever-growing library of trainings, modalities, and spiritual traditions I had accumulated along the way.

I am a lifelong resident of Monroe, in the northeast corner of Louisiana. I live with Jason, my life-partner since 2011, in what I consider a beautiful, welcoming, and happy little home. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from Northeast Louisiana University in 1999 and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Louisiana State University the following year. I have been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (#7030) in the State of Louisiana since 2005.

What I built over those years was substantial—but looking back, I can see it also represented a kind of search. I had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and an equally restless spiritual life. I moved in and out of the Baptist Church, spent time in contemplative traditions, and read voraciously across comparative religion, Jungian psychology, mysticism, near-death experience literature, and the writings of non-dual teachers. For most of my spiritual life, I was what I can only describe as a dabbler—pulling something from this path, something from that one, crafting what I hoped would be my own perfect synthesis. Never really committing to one way.

All of that changed with the Course—though not right away.

Enter A Course in Miracles

When I first encountered the Course, I wanted nothing to do with it. I would not admit it at the time, but I looked down on those who studied it. A channeled book that seemed vaguely New Age and, frankly, a little silly to me — I couldn’t understand why anyone would take it seriously. I certainly wasn’t going to.

But then it kept showing up.

Quotes from the Course appeared in books by teachers I deeply respected. Its ideas surfaced in unexpected places. The more I was exposed to its philosophy—even in these brief, almost reluctant encounters—the more I found myself drawn in. I eventually became embarrassed by how smug I had been. What I had dismissed as “New Age” turned out to be one of the most logically rigorous, internally consistent, and practically applicable spiritual thought systems I had ever encountered. I was genuinely awestruck.

In 2008, after careful consideration, I officially became a student of A Course in Miracles and began a dedicated study and application of its healing and transformative teachings. Almost from the very beginning, my primary companions on this path have been the teachers, staff, and students of the Circle of Atonement—a non-profit organization whose commitment to “the words on the page” and to taking the Course’s claims seriously has been exactly the kind of grounding I needed.

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

On the first day of my membership in the Circle of Atonement’s online community, Robert Perry—the Circle’s founder and main teacher—reached out with an offer I didn’t expect: the opportunity to have a personal Course teacher. The person he had in mind was Charlie Record from Palm Springs, California.

Accepting Charlie as my teacher was the best decision I could have made.

For over three years, Charlie and I talked on the phone for more than an hour every Tuesday and Friday night—rarely missing a session. Together we read and discussed the entire Text of the Course, the Manual for Teachers, and both supplements (Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and The Song of Prayer). During that same period I completed the 365 lessons of the Workbook for Students in about a year and a half.

What Charlie gave me wasn’t just comprehension of a complex thought system. He gave me the lived experience of a teacher/student relationship and showed me, first hand, what it means to walk this path with a companion. When our formal teacher /student relationship ended, Charlie continued to walk with me in a different way: reading and giving feedback on the early drafts of what would eventually become my book, Release and Be Released: The Practice of Miraculous Forgiveness.

When the Teacher is Ready…

Following the path of A Course in Miracles has changed everything—my relationships with others, my relationship with God, and my understanding of who we really are and why we are here. I have a peace I did not know before. Not a peace that depends on circumstances going well, but something quieter and more durable underneath all of it.

In 2025 I was selected as one of 23 participants in the inaugural class of the Miracle Ministry Academy (MMA), taught by Robert and Emily Perry through the Circle of Atonement. The Academy’s purpose was to equip each of us with everything we would need to make teaching A Course in Miracles our full-time work—covering not only deep personal study methods and faithful teaching of the Course’s ideas, but also the practical work of building a ministry dedicated to extending those ideas into the world.

The result of that Academy is what you are looking at now. Renaming my practice from the Center for Awakened Living to the Center for Miraculous Living marks the completion of a transition I never could have foreseen: from a traditional psychotherapy practice informed by an array of therapeutic modalities to a ministry exclusively centered around Course-based psychotherapy (called Miracle-Minded Therapy by the Circle of Atonement); from an eclectic, grab-bag approach to spirituality to a faithful commitment to one path—a path I believe was made for me, and just might be made for you.

I want to be honest about one ongoing challenge. One of the Center’s core values is fidelity to the ideas of A Course in Miracles—holding them with the highest degree of importance and resisting the temptation to mix them with the teachings of other paths. Given everything I’ve absorbed over the years, it should be clear that vigilance in this matter is something I will always need to practice. The compass pictured on this page—a Christmas gift from a dear friend, brought to the final session of the Miracle Ministry Academy as a symbol of this journey—represents my commitment: to keep going in the direction of my dreams, to stay open to the Holy Spirit’s direction and guidance, and above all, to “stay the Course” with all aspects of this ministry.

“The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.” (CE T-8.V.12:6-7)

I am committed to this path. And I am committed to you and any role I might play for you as we walk together.