August this year will be busy for me, both in my work and my personal life:

On the morning of Thursday, August 13th, the Casa Grande Mayor's Committee on Disability Issues will be reconvening after the summer break. I've been on the Committee since early this year, and hope to convey the message that the struggle for rights for disabled people should include people with all manner of physical and mental conditions.

The evening of Thursday, August 13, will mark the first meeting of PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) in Casa Grande, at 7:00 p.m. at St. Michael and All Angels Liberal Catholic Cathedral, 545 E. Palm Parke Blvd., Casa Grande, AZ 85122. This will be the second support group for members of the LGBT and their loved ones in the Casa Grande/Pinal County area. The first is Central Arizona Rainbow Equality (C.A.R.E.), which meets at the Signal Peak Library of Central Arizona College in Coolidge.

Thanks to founding member and past president of C.A.R.E., Christopher Hall, and the other members of C.A.R.E., PFLAG, and members of St. Michael's, September 26 will be the date for the second Gay Pride event in Casa Grande this year, Casa Grande Gay Day. (More about that in this space later. Promise!) We should also recognize The Very Reverend Mother Maria C. "Sally" Jose, Pastor of St. Michael's and Vicar General of the Liberal Catholic Diocese of Arizona; The Reverend Gilda Eakin, Deacon and Youth Pastor of St. Michael's; and The Most Reverend Bennett D.D. Burke, Pastor of Our Lady of Peace and Hope, Mission of the Liberal Catholic Church in Tucson, and Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Diocese of Arizona. All of these people have worked tirelessly to advance the support network and services for members of the LGBT community and their loved ones in Pinal and Pima Counties, especially Casa Grande, Coolidge, Florence, and Tucson, Arizona.

And once I get to that first PFLAG meeting, I'm looking forward to meeting people from PFLAG Phoenix, as well as more people right here in our local community of Casa Grande who are also laboring to make the world a better place for everyone by standing up for civil rights for all.

On the personal side, August will mark the beginning of my ability to see better. I'll have my first cataract surgery on my right eye on Thursday, August 20th. I'm not sure how soon after that they'll do the left eye, but they promise I'll be able to see what I'm writing on my computer screen, read the crawl on the TV news stations so I can keep up with what's going on in the world, and even see the baseball scores on TV! Now, if the Diamondbacks will just start winning every game for the rest of the season--and the Dodgers and all those other teams in the NL West croak, we can enjoy another fantastic World Series in October! It could happen!

Love and peace to all,
Debbie Jordan