Bud & Betty

A story of two of my saints

The pivotal moment of my call story happened at the funeral of Bud Dasenbrock.

I had known Bud for almost a decade as he and his wife were generous supporters of The Lutheran Center, the campus ministry I attended during college and worked at after graduating. Bud and Betty were dear friends, generous donors, and all around amazing humans I am lucky to have known.

Bud’s funeral—a week after Ash Wednesday and a week before the world shut down in 2020—was packed. I stood at the back wall of the sanctuary as there were not enough seats for the community who had been touched by his life.

It was in the car after Bud’s funeral service where I finally—after eight years—felt the call to be a pastor. It was one of the clearest intuitions I’ve ever had.

After the funeral of a sweet old landscaper.

I’ve thought about Bud’s funeral a lot over the past four years, trying to pick it apart as to what exactly the Spirit did during that 60ish minutes that led me to completely change my stance on seminary in a snap of a moment. I suspect it was a multitude of factors of which I won’t get into here today.

My strongest theory, though, is that his funeral was a witness to the life of a man who spent his days on earth doing the thing God called him to do.

This was beautifully highlighted in the sermon Rev Neal Anthony preached on a text I don’t remember. His proclamation infiltrated my soul. It broke me open. It proclaimed Gospel that intertwined the ashes of Lent with the dirt of the soil that was often found in Bud’s hands. It told the story of Bud’s partnership with God in caring for the beautiful creation of this world.

You see, Bud was a man who loved the dirt. His backyard was lush and filled with plant life. He knew every part of UNL’s campus landscaping for decades. Caring for and celebrating creation in this way was what God put him on this earth to do. He did this work with love and passion and excitement and purpose. He loved teaching people about trees and designing beautiful landscaping that would highlight plants and spent a lot of time being out in it to simply enjoy.

Even after knowing him for nearly ten years, it was only in his death that his deepest vocation was reflected back to me. That I saw clearly how God used this man for God’s beautiful and creative work in the world.

I think bearing witness to his ministry was what awoke the deep vocational calling lying dormant in my own soul.

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Betty was no horticulturalist, but she also had a clear vocational calling that she never abandoned. She was put on this earth to be a third grade teacher, there’s no doubt about it. She loved children. Her joy was infectious. I actually know one of her former students who is now a successful architect with a beautiful family, who has shared stories of how Betty loved him in a particular way during a challenging time in his life.

Before I moved to San Diego in 2021, I went and visited Betty in her home. Over a year after Bud’s death, her grief was palpable but her life was still full. Though she was struggling to upkeep all the landscaping Bud had planted throughout their yard.

I wrote her a letter sharing the story of my Bud’s-funeral-conversion, hoping that it might serve as a reminder of Bud’s witness and ministry in this world, even in his death. I needed her to know his integral part in this next part of my journey.

I stayed connected with Betty throughout seminary, calling to catch up every handful of months, until I received an email that she was in hospice. I learned the news on a seminary trip while on a long late-night bus ride in Guatemala. The next morning, I called her from a hotel in the middle of nowhere to say my goodbyes.

And you know what she did?

She prayed for me.

Betty prayed for me. The future pastor. The one fully alive and not facing my own death.

I was honestly embarrassed she beat me to it—did I just fail pastor school??—but I was also not surprised in the least. This is what Bud and Betty did. This is how profoundly they loved and gave and served in the world. This is what their ministry looked like. And I’m confident this is why their lives altered the course of mine.

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On Sunday, Cameron and I headed to UNL’s East Campus Arboretum to do our former Lincoln spring tradition of going to smell the lilac garden and pick some off to take home. On our way over, we came across a newly constructed bridge. By some miracle, my eyes were immediately drawn to a tiny plaque on the side:

Wilber ‘Bud’ Dasenbrock Memorial Bridge

I stood there and pointed, my eyes welling up with tears. Cameron had no idea what I was pointing to and I had no words in me to explain. I just stood there and wept.

Once again, I was encountering the resurrected Bud.

It felt like he was meeting me in that moment, four years later. Checking in on me to see how things were going since the last time he upended my life.

After returning from a wonderful week at my seminary where I preached a very personal sermon on the incarnational promise of “Peace be with you”, I was humbled and astonished by how Luke 24 seemed to be playing out in my own life.

How the resurrection stunned me, leaving me startled and speechless.

And how it was the incarnation—a living breathing fleshy encounter with the resurrected—that moved me from my terror of the future to joy.

In my own “Peace be with you” moment, I was reminded of the call that awoke in my soul four years ago and the deep joy it brings me and how I don’t have to go out and ‘save the world’ for God to use me (though that’s still the plan).

Because as Bud showed me and continues to remind me, God also ministers through landscapers.

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Bud and Betty.

Landscaper and third grade teacher.

Agents of God’s love and service and generosity in the world.

My saints on earth and now in heaven above, continuing to meet me in the trees and remind me of what God put me on this earth to do.

🕊️

P.S. Missed my Luke 24 sermon on “Peace be with you”? Check it out here. 👇🏼