Remembering Bud Budnick
Mowing Jesus' Lawn
by Carl Mazza

Our dear friend Bud Budnick died in the night, quietly, on Monday, May 3. He passed away in his room--suddenly, peacefully, and alone. In the morning we watched as his body was carefully placed on a stretcher and carried to an ambulance as he left Clairvaux Farm for the last time. Only a few hours before we had said good-night to him as he turned in early at the end of a beautiful spring day.

I could not help but notice that Bud was carried past the John Deere tractor, which he had parked right by his door on Sunday afternoon. It was obvious he was planning to mow the grass on this day, had not his destiny claimed a more solemn task for him. Now, I hope Bud doesn't mind if I tell his story as I knew it.

I think we assume that, as we age, we make "progress" in life. We would like to believe that we grow toward new horizons, and that life slowly and predictably parts the veil on some of its most baffling and hidden secrets. It is comforting to think that in older age we may be heir to a wisdom and understanding which eludes and baffles us when we are younger.

As much as I would like this scheme to be true, I don't know that it is. Rather than a linear progress, life appears to be a series of circles in which, at various stages, we are returned anew--perhaps with fresh insight and certainly with deeper experience--to the lessons we have always known were true, yet never fully learned. These tasks may be simple in their expression, partly because they are elemental to the human soul, and, as well, because in their clarity and singular purity they best express that which is the highest aspiration of the human soul. Among these virtues are generosity, kindness, a broad humanity, empathy, care, friendship, and loving commitment.

When he came to Clairvaux Farm, Bud was one of the most thoroughly homeless persons I had ever met. The fact that he didn't have a roof over his head was only the beginning. He had lost the welcome of co-workers, friends, even family. He was so coldly perceived in his own hometown that the kindest thing a compassionate neighbor could do for him was to help him get out of the county. It was a particularly ugly, virtually hopeless story for which the word "terminal" seemed apt if not thoroughly appropriate. Many who knew him saw his life as a linear descent into a self-inflicted tangle of tragedy. In fact, though, Bud's life was a circle, and this apparent nadir soon proved to be only a great slow turn of the wheel.

It was shortly after his arrival at the Farm, in the midst of these unforgiving circumstances, that Bud seemed to stir in his spirit and slowly rouse himself.

Looking back, we can now so clearly see that, as Bud was mustering to move in a completely new direction, he made a solemn, solid commitment--a pledge to revisit and, for one last opportunity, draw new life and happiness from the bright and good well of his soul. If God indeed is the creation life-force, then I have rarely observed such a clear instance of a divine visitation in a human life. Things began to change rapidly for him.

Bud couldn't sit quietly for long in a public place at the Farm because children flocked around him, calling him "Pop-Pop" as if by some mystic instinct. Homeless teenagers, some deeply troubled, confided in him and loved him as a true friend. Bud systematically began to commit himself to doing some of the most difficult regular tasks--the ones many people try a time or two, then quit on. He usually began doing them when he noticed that no one else wanted the job.

He started by cooking lavish dinners for us every Sunday, then breakfast every day of the week. It wasn't long before he took over care and maintenance of the old tractor and mowing, again and again, our acres of grass that grows so abundantly in the moist Maryland Bay-country. This wasn't just "keeping up with the Joneses," although Bud loved the Farm to look nice. He created neatly clipped play areas for the children and for countless volley ball and softball games. He was careful in his chore to make the grounds pleasing and beautiful to the eye.

Now we see, in his dedicated grass cutting, that he was expressing a promise, a virtue of the soul--and this when there is often so little beauty available to the homeless, so precious little of sheer elegance and grace.

Then we lost our regular driver. There was rising concern: people wondered how they would get to their jobs, find housing, keep appointments, etc. It was then that Bud went out and did what he swore he would never do again when he first came to live at Clairvaux Farm. He got his driver's licence reinstated. It was not easy for him; it was a humiliating experience. He did it so that he could get up before 6:00 a.m. every morning to make the first of several trips to town, as he covered over a 150 miles a day, seven days a week, the tedious, singularly unrewarding task of getting people to the same places they had to go every day, and back again.

I think all the dignitaries, social prophets, charismatic leaders and other "great ones" of our world, ever seeking and ever getting the credit of accomplishment for the children of earth. Yet the real story of human progress is not usually in the big deeds, publicly affirmed and cheered. It is, rather, in the courage and persistence of those who return, even at sunset when the circle is almost complete, to once again try to learn and master the broad human virtues; and to bring the vast, unreachable realm of almighty God into the common life of people who need help, and who just want to know that someone cares what happens to them.

My question is: why would a man commit himself to mow an endless summer lawn which he did not own and for which he was not paid? A person might be inspired to rise to the challenge if they knew, for example, that the lawn belonged to Jesus. It would be enough for the sheer honor of it to be the mower of Jesus' lawn!

Yet, what amazes me about Bud is that I don't think he even thought it was Jesus' or even God's lawn. He may not even have done it for that reason. He mowed because it was Toni's lawn, or young Misha's, or a hundred other people who found joy in its beauty and use.

By the same token, who would drive Jesus to work? Any of us would likely jump at the opportunity, even as we swelled with the pride and honor of such a task. Yet Bud would not be far behind on the road to town. He might not be driving Jesus, but surely Mary would be with him, or Alex, going to work, or perhaps Linda, Jim or any of a dozen others, on their way to a doctor's appointment or apartment hunting.

I can't say that Bud was a "saint." And I won't say it, either, because Bud would be disappointed, if not completely shocked at such a prospect. So let it be said that he was a "caretaker" instead. The Caretaker of Clairvaux Farm. He took care for the things that, at the end of his life, really, really mattered to him. He took care of the things he loved so very much.

It is a mystery, is it not? That which Bud loved, and for which he expressed so much kindness and generosity, were the self same, the very things declared to be the dearest to God as well. No, we will not call Bud a "saint." For he was just a man who was homeless, and who, in his sorrow for himself, took up the task to make the path bright for others so burdened. And thus, without doubt, he was able to make glad the heart of all Being.