Remembering Phyllis Roe
by Ruth Ann Clark
October 13, 2001
Among many gifts in Phyllis was the gift of leadership. She lead in many ways in AAPC: chairing the Nominating Committee of AAPC, serving on the Membership / Certification Committee, co-founding an AAPC service center with her husband Michael Anderson, and more recently being Vice Chair and Chair of Pacific Region. In her brief one year stint at the latest post, Phyllis served on the Board of Governors of AAPC. There she was elected Chair of Regional Chairs. Wherever she went, Phyllis' leadership gifts were desired and sought after.
One of the things I liked best about Phyllis was that she was so SANE. I didn't experience her handing out any "hype." Neither did I experience her doing any demonizing of others who may have disagreed with her about issues and decisions. In the midst of her leadership style of sanity, wholeness, and genuine acceptance, Phyllis was gifted with the ability to create community wherever she was. She took delight in the daily and ordinary events of life, like going for a walk and seeing children playing in the park. She actively engaged in her spiritual life, being deeply open to God's ways for her. Phyllis was a friend, and a blessing to all in her life (including all of us).
Phyllis was indeed a blessing to us. Rachel Naomi Remen, author of My Grandfather's Blessings, has written: "A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another." Phyllis invited us to be whole with her --- not explicitly, but it was in her manner, her way of being with us. This is descriptive of how Phyllis was a blessing to us.
And I think one way Phyllis was able to be a blessing to us is that she long ago learned to receive her blessings. Again, Remen has written: "One of my patients once told me that she has an image of us all being circled by our blessings, sometimes for years, like airplanes in a holding pattern at an airport, stacked up with no place to land. Waiting for a moment of our time, our attention." In Phyllis, God's blessings landed. May we learn from her all too brief life, and let God's blessings in our lives land in us. Doing so is a way to know Phyllis presence in our midst for a long time to come.
Rev. Ruth Ann Clark, D.Min., of San Francisco Theological Seminary and Lloyd Center Pastoral Counseling Services, is AAPC Pacific Regional Chairperson, successor to Phyllis Roe.