”You are expected to be at the bonfire by 8:30pm.  Don’t be late.  This is a key part of the process.”  The student organizer for homecoming looked at us intently, and with much seriousness in her voice, knowing full well that the bulk of us wouldn’t be there anywhere close to that time.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t much of a bonfire guy.  Our idea of a bonfire on the farm was burning some piles of old hay, straw, and feed sacks or better yet – trying to blow up old kitchen appliances with the use of highly flammable liquids….

While it could very well make for a great spectator sport, it was not what was generally considered to be a good homecoming week festivity.

Being a “Homecoming King Candidate” for NDSU, complete with big green ribbon to remind everyone of that fact as we walked around campus (and we were scolded if someone from the organizing committee found us walking around campus without it), I was forced to get used to some of the timeless college traditions like bonfires, alumni gatherings, ice cream socials, and drinking heavily.

The bonfire kicked off sharply at 8:30, right as the sun set below the orange harvest skyline.  It was something to behold, a mass of timbers off next to the National Historic Site listed flax plots on the far west side of campus was stacked up high in a carefully engineered pyre.

Which was lit up and spewed embers into the night sky.  It was impressive.  In the back of my mind, I figured that the timbers were probably soaked in creosote…

Fraternities, sororities, and student groups competed in a challenge to sing a song or do a cheer.  Each fraternity was paired with a sorority, and my fraternity there on College Street was lucky to be paired up with one of the prettiest of the sororities on campus…but they didn’t help much with homecoming, so in their best down home homing coming spirit, the men composed a great song to the tune of Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans” that composed of fantastic lyrics telling the complex story of how our mighty Bison were going to go on to crush the lowly bears from Colorado the next day.

It was great, except much like the sage advice of never bring a knife to a gun fight…don’t bring a ballad to a cheer contest…

Needless to say, they didn’t win, but there was one in the homecoming court that cheered them to excess.  And he was the one sober.

After the cheering and singing, as the judges went to debate the merits of each rousing act, they introduced the homecoming court.

Now picture this if you will, a crowd of college students, in a death match to find out who won the song/cheer contest at homecoming, and the one thing standing between the rowdy contestants and results where ten seniors wearing big green ribbons….none-the-less, my fraternity brothers, and more than a fair share of the sorority girls let out a cheer as I walked over the rough field with the flames of the dying bonfire in the background.

Not much of a catwalk, but just right for a country boy like me.

I was a member of the speech team in high school.  When I joined our local Future Farmers of America chapter, I decided to merge the two interests by competing in the extemporaneous speaking contest.By competing in the contest, it would help to send me on to the Minnesota State FFA Convention the following spring.  But first, I had to win the regional competition held at the community college in Thief River Falls.

I had been told that it might be a long shot.  I was only a ninth grader and we had someone in our region that dominated the regional and had placed second in the state the prior year.  It was hard to compete with the experience.

The extemp speaking contest was a well run machine.  You walked into the room where about twenty topics were laying face down on a table.  There were about eight contestants, and every ten minutes, one of us drew a topic and then proceeded to research the topic we material we brought and prepare a five minute speech on the topic.

Waiting in the drawing room, I met my competition.  They were ruthless.  They leered down at me, a mere freshman.  The winner of last years competition came over to tell his tales of what it felt like to compete at state.  To tell me how well he did.  How well he expected to do this year.

With childlike innocents, I listened respectfully.  Not realizing that he was employing psychological mind games on me.

Looking around, it appeared that I was at a disadvantage.  Other contestants had boxes of material.  Binders filled with material pre-researched.

I had about three copies of AgWeek that I’d swiped from Dad’s magazine rack.  Though my pre-research was reading them cover to cover each week when they arrived.

I drew a topic on international trade and its impact on agriculture…

BINGO!  I loved this topic.  It was a dream topic for me.  As a freshman in high school, I was already an ardent free trader, and willing to debate it with anyone!  My first good break for the day.

For the next thirty minutes, I prepared my speech, then walking into a class room, I delivered it to three judges – and went just to five minutes.  Then, under the rules, they were allowed to ask me questions for five minutes.

They grilled me.  I answered their questions, but while some of the questions were in line with the speech…others made me wonder if they judges had been listening at all…

My FFA advisor and mentor, Mr. Erickson met me about thirty minutes after the contest.

“How did it go?” He asked.

“Not really well.”  I answered.

“Well, it is your first year – hopefully you did your best and we’ll see what happens.” He replied.

Before the awards ceremony, I ran into him again…he was acting pretty funny.  When the awards were announced, I figured out why – I had won.

I ran into the student that had won the prior year and his advisor in the hallway, they didn’t seem happy.

To hear Mr. Erickson tell it, it was a brutal experience.  “They are pissed off!”  Mr. Erickson said with glee in his voice.  “They think he was robbed!  Beginners luck they called it!”

I had to laugh with him.  And we were both laughing when I went on to get second place at state the next spring.

“They aren’t calling it beginners luck any more!”  Mr. Erickson said proudly.

 Society has a list of norms, things that we ought to do.  Brush out teeth, get a good job, wear nice cloths, drive ‘the right’ make of car, watch ‘the right’ shows on television – all of these things society, call it peer pressure, tries to enforce.

And woe to the person that steps out of what is perceived to be normal.  Even if this normal means accepting all things as they are – calling good evil and evil good. 

Society is a finicky thing.  But I don’t think that is new.

In ancient times, and even well into our modern age, ‘good people’ went to church every Sunday.  They could go through the motions, say the words, and proceed with their lives during the week looking out for themselves, gossiping with others, and otherwise making an arse of themselves.

Meanwhile, others, some of whom didn’t go to church every Sunday (if at all!) where doing the deeds – feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, sheltering the homeless.  Like the son in the Gospel, they might have said “no Father, I will not follow you,” but in their hearts, they were doing the deeds that made them Christians.

Words without actions are empty things.

But often times, this isn’t an easy thing.  Increasingly, society is telling us what is and isn’t acceptable – on both ends of the political, and dare I say, religious spectrum.  They are bothing saying what we ought to do.  One side is preaching condemn all those that don’t believe, one side is saying you must accept everyone and all of the choices they make and support them.

In the end, it is about hating the sin, but loving the sinner.  It is about realize the fault in our own lives, without judging the others – but also not focusing on what we ‘ought’ to do, but what is right and what is wrong.

It is not about who is, or was, a sinner – but where we stand today.  As Paul tells us, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.”

Society tells us this is foolishness.  That it is about looking out for ourselves and not minding what others do….

But it is less about doing what we ought, and more about doing what we should – and following the greatest commandment – Love the Lord your God with all your might, and love your neighbour as yourself.

 It was a bit of history really, something that hadn’t happened in decades.  And I was there.

North Dakota State University had a proud football tradition as the might Bison played their way to NCAA Division II championships throughout their history.  Some decades were better than others, but overall it had a history in Division II.

In a controversial move, the Bison decided to make the move one division up from Division II to Division I-AA, leaving their long running partners behind.

The newspapers called it a folly.  Some of the other universities followed, most chided them and called them fools.

But it lead to this day, this one day in history…when the might Bison would square off against the much bigger, much stronger, University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.

To Bison fans, who saw our first game against a larger rival – the Division I-AA national champion University of Montana end in a hard fought victory – we believed.  We knew that at a minimum we could play with them.

The Gopher fans called us nuts.  Famed and infamous Star Tribune sports commentator Sid Hartman called it a farce.  There was a reason that the University of Minnesota was paying us $400,000 to come down and play – because they knew it would be an easy victory.  It was a scrimmage.

They should have told that to the Thundering Herd of fans that made the trek down to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome to watch the game.  A crowd of Bison supporters that some estimates had as high as fifty thousand in the seventy thousand seat stadium.

The Gopher fans were out-numbered and out shouted by a span of over two to one.  It was a sea of Bison green and gold versus the maroon and gold of the Gophers.  With a good cadre of my fraternity brothers, we tailgated in the designated area, overflowing with exuberate Bison fans, we made our way to our seats.

And as the game wore on, it was clear that the Bison were not just keeping up, but were winning on the ground.  And the fans…well, the fans muted the mighty Gopher band!  Every time they started to play, a mighty cry went up from the Bison fans – drowning out any noise that the band could muster.

The Bison had the home field advantage.

In the end, the Gophers won, but it was a demoralizing victory for the Gophers…and a powerful win for the Bison, coming down and playing a Big 10 team to a near stalemate.  And getting paid $400,000 in the process.

After the game, a group of about twenty of us made our way to a classic German Restaurant/Beer Hall in North Minneapolis, and over a sauerbraten, spatzel, and meterbrats, we toasted our Might Bison.

As we drank our beers and ate our food, a wondering minstrel with an accordion wandered by.  Playing a few favorites, he asked if there were any requests…I slipped the man a $20, and soon we heard the bars to “Oh My Darling” and with one accord, the twenty Bison fans at our table sang with all their might:

On the plains of North Dakota
Standing there for all to see,
Is an old abandoned outhouse
And they call it UND

Hail the Bison, Hail the Bison
With their tails up in the air
University, University
You can kiss what’s under there!

I think it brought a tear to the old accordion players eyes, we sang with such gusto, such spirit, as a polka has never been played before.  We received a rousing round of applause from the neighboring tables, and even a fair number of standing ovations.

It was, as I fondly call them, a Bison moment.

 John Wayne died in a total of eight movies, no one wanted to see “The Duke” die on screen, it just wasn’t natural.

As a twist of fate would have it, his last movie, filmed in 1976, was a tale of an aging gunman named John Bernard Books who was dying from cancer, a battle that John Wayne was fighting in person.

I’ll admit, the first time I saw the movie, I wasn’t a fan.  John Wayne, though dead in real life by the time I saw it, just didn’t die on film.  He was the tough but tender hearted hero that righted wrongs and lived off a gentlemen’s code.

But there was one scene, one line in that movie that struck me – like few other lines from books, movies, or songs.

Wayne’s character, Books, is walking with the teenage son of the boarding house owner, Gillom Rogers (a very young Ron Howard), when Gillom asks to shoot his pistol.  They take aim at a tree and Gillom lets loose with five shots.  Books takes aim and quickly fires away five shots as well.

Walking up, Gillom is surprised to see that his aim was about as good as the famed gunfighter.  Gillom asks the obvious question, “Mr. Books, How is it you’ve killed so many men? My spread wasn’t much bigger than yours. ”

John Bernard Books draws himself up and says with a little amused indignation, “First of all, friend, there’s no one up there shooting back at you. Second, I found most men aren’t willing, they bat an eye, or draw a breath before they shoot. I won’t.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of becoming a gun slinger.  But I think what Mr. Books was saying was pretty darn accurate, how many of us are really willing.  How many people in their own lives, bat an eye, or draw a breath.

How many of us complain about our jobs or the direction that our lives are heading, but we second guess, we flinch, we wait for someone else to fix it.

How many of us lament the fact that we don’t have the skills or the abilities to do what we want to, but we don’t go out and do something about it.  We don’t make it a priority, we don’t make the moves to position ourselves to grow and achieve our potential.

In the end, how many of us are willing?

I’ll admit, more times than not, I’ve held back, not confident in what I could do or achieve, believing that there was someone better, smarter, faster, stronger, than me – and I’m willing to admit, there probably is, but regardless what office or award that I earned, most of the time, it was because it was because I was willing.

It scares me to think of the number of things I’ve missed in this world, simply because I wasn’t willing, wasn’t willing to take that chance, ask the girl to dance, try out for some sport, helped someone that needed it, raised my hand and said ‘pick me’, or put it on the line for something I believed in.

Because I wasn’t willing.

I remember using same scene from “The Shootist” in training for my fraternities recruitment process – where we willing to go out and find the good men on campus, to introduce ourselves, to go the extra mile to make them feel welcome.

Most of us aren’t willing, we bat an eye, or draw a breath….

Most people – myself included – are scared of the consequences.  Usually peer pressure, embarrassment, or financial loss.  We aren’t willing.  It takes courage.

As John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

 Growing up on a farm in the middle of the harsh climate of Northwestern Minnesota, there wasn’t much use of tears.  You might freeze your fingers and toes in the winter, but tears wouldn’t bring the feeling back.  In the summer, you could sweat away in the heat and humidity of the hay barn or the rafters of the hay shed, but the tears won’t help you keep any cooler.  If a cow stepped on your foot, there wasn’t anyone there to wipe the tears, nor would it do any good.  And more than likely, with a crew of older brothers, you would be scolded for the tears.

So through training and learning, the tears don’t flow very much any more.

If the pains and maladies of the farm wouldn’t send tears, rarely would stories, poems, songs, or speeches cause the tears to well up.

I have to say, there were a few tears this morning sitting in the pew of St. Patricks.  Was it joy, was it grace, was it faith?  I’m not sure.  Father Kevin McGovern answered an age old question for me from one of the most perplexing readings from the New Testament.

I’ve never understood the parable of the workers in the vineyard, those workers that were paid the same regardless of the hours they spent toiling in the sun.  I’ve never understood how someone that did less work could still make the same money – was God a Socialist?

The parable that Father McGovern gave went something like this:

A man died and went to the gates of heaven.  He was a good man, a good husband, a good father.  He worked, he went home, he did the things that society said he was supposed to do.

Behind him was a woman.  She was a real go getter.  She was a fantastic wife and mother.  She was active in the community.  She actively lived her faith – in addition to be a loving mother and wife, she fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and truly tried to make the world a better place.  She wasn’t content to stay inside the box – she got out and really tried to make a difference.

As the man walked up to St. Peter, he was greeted with these words – “Welcome to heaven, good and faithful servant.  You gave twenty measures of service, in return, you will get a thousand measures here in heaven.”

Right behind him was the woman, and St. Peter smiled, and greeted her, “Welcome to heaven, good and faithful servant.  You gave five hundred measures of service, in return, you will get a thousand measures here in heaven.”

There was an awkward silence as both the man and woman thought about the differences in their lives – and sameness of the reward….

Finally the women spoke, “Had I known that I could have done the minimum and still received the same reward, had I known I could have done away with the pain and the angst…I don’t think I would have done anything differently.”

As a Christian, it never quite sunk in that while we aim for heaven, part of the reward is doing His will on earth.  We can live a timid life, we can live a life of safety and comfort – conforming to society….

Or we can take the other route – following the voice inside of us directing us to stand up for the weak, the poor, the homeless, the innocent.  There are few satisfactions in this life…but it is the joy of the life well lived.  The pay at the end doesn’t matter as much as the passion, the joy in a job done well.  Nothing more will glorify our Lord, then this.

God is no socialist.  He knows that we must enjoy what we do, but we must also have the freedom to live our lives, to struggle, to fail, to triumph, to run the race.

There were tears in my eyes as I reflected on this during the Eucharist.  Tears of joy.  But also a nagging pain…what life am I living?

 As a freshman, we had already been in the high school part of our building for the last two years, but suddenly, more class options were available to us.  Being a good farm boy, I chose, along with about a third of my class to take the Ag Class taught by Mr. Erickson.  Part of being Ag Classes was membership in the Future Farmers of America.  This was only available to students in the ninth grade or older.

And we were young and ambitious, with the prize being making to a state competition at the Minnesota State FFA Convention down on St. Paul campus of the U of M the following spring.  Our first opportunity came in late September at the Region I Soils competition.

Soils competition?

Yup, we were going to try our hand at soil judging.  It was the very first contest of the year out of a string of many (dairy cattle, beef cattle, farm management, floriculture, forestry, etc).  So we were all itching to compete and earn our trip.

And every 9^th grade FFA member was vying for a spot.

We studied in the class room with various samples, learning about the benefit of different soil types and what they felt like.

Towards the end of September, Mr. Erickson would have a hole dug with a backhoe just down the road in a field across from the tennis courts.  We would climb down into the hole to look at the different layers of soil and see the divisions of the black topsoil and the underlying clay and sand.

With a little water, we made a little ball out of the soil and weighed it in our hand, then carefully tried to make a small ribbon out of it to test the content of the soil – how much clay, sand, or loam was present.

We had a brief contest that day to determine the four people that would represent the chapter at the regional competition.  By luck, I got to represent.

The next week, we clamoured into a van about seven o’clock in the morning and travelled north in the early morning sun.  We would be getting a couple of hours of practice, stopping at fields along the way to try our hand at soil typing.

Part of the contest was checking the slope of land.  Something we knew nothing about.  We spent about fifteen minutes learning that too.

Arriving at the contest sight, we met our foes on the field of battle for the first time – it was a field in the middle of nowhere, somewhere north and east of Erskine.  There were six teams present, about twenty four kids in all.

The battle was on.

They had pits dug and we each descended into the open slits in the black fertile fields like soldiers study trenches before a battle.

We felt the soil, trying to pick out its components, we identified different soil types, we did a written test about different components of soils and fertilizer. 

In short, it was very thorough.

The top three individuals from the top three teams would compete at state – so we had to be one of the top half to make it.

As we emerged from the slits of earth and finished up our tests, we went back to each of our vans to wait for the verdict, as the ag teachers assembled with clip boards to score and pronounce verdict.

Our team placed second – we earned our way to state – and I was one of the top three participates.  I’d earned my way to the state convention.  Though I still couldn’t figure out a slope more than say – this slopes down…

 Sunday and the jetlag still had a hold. It was another five am wake up.  More unpacking and moving things about.  A little reading.

The family was coming back again today for a little celebration for a proper house warming.  But first things first, it was Sunday morning and I had to go to church.

As luck would have it, as I pulled into the parking lot, who should pull in next to me but my brother and his family.  We walked in together and sat behind the choir, which my sister-in-law Mary and niece Abby stepped into help.

It was a good Mass, and it was a good way to celebrate being home.

Back to the cabin, and we fired up the grill.  We would have a house full, will Dad, two of my brother’s and their families, my brother Tom’s in-laws, and good friends from college Matt and Stacy and their two boys.

We had a grand feast with beef tenderloin, corn on the cob, and a host of other delights.  Then for the kids, it was back in the water for another afternoon of visiting.  My nephews were heading in and out of the water, grabbing M & M’s between swims, which means they looked like some tie-dye monsters fresh from the deep.

At the end of the day, another meal (brats, tenderloin, and assorted left overs) under our belt, and another good Minnesota summer day behind us.

Matt and Stacy’s kids barely made it to the car before falling asleep…

It was a day of good things and good people.  That night, I too slept very well, with the words from Mass earlier in the day going through my head, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.”

But I had an early morning wake up call, and unfortunately, earlier then I expected.

Sleeping with the windows open, getting a scent of the night air and the cool breeze always attracts me more than the hum of air conditioning, it also serves as an early warning system for threatening weather.

I heard the sound of distant thunder and the rattle of the leaves with the approaching storm…but it was fifteen minutes later that the exceptionally loud weather radio proceeded to threaten to break my ear drums.

It was three o’clock in the morning.

The weather threatened off and on for most of the early morning hours, and the weather radio just couldn’t be silenced. 

But it never rained.  Lightening streaked across the sky, thunder rattled in the distance, but only a few paltry drops fell from the sky.

About 6am, I went for a walk.  The sky still rattling in the distance.

 We all sat in stunned silence.  Waiting.  After the first building went.  We knew what would, what seemed like it must happen.  We waited.

The second building fell.

The office, the normal buzzing hive of activity was silenced.  Time passed. 

As the morning wore on, people called home to check on loved ones.  Others just went home.  Uncertainty, fear, disbelief, horror filled the air.

Slowly, more information, more images filled the computers and the televisions, the fire fighters, the police officers rushing into the disaster.  The story of people throwing themselves out of the building to their deaths.  The morgues and the bodies that would be found.  Images of a great cloud of dust that filled the streets of New York.

At that point, I’d never been to New York.  As a fan of history and economics, I knew what the city meant, and what it stood for…but until you are there, and walk the buildings, the tunnels formed by the massive buildings lining the streets of Manhattan, you don’t get a sense for what must have been going through peoples minds…the buildings are falling…the sky was falling…

The day wore on.

No one was sending emails.  No one was making phone calls.  The markets were closed, partly out of respect, but partly out of fear.  The stock exchange building in New York was obviously impacted.  The grain markets, based in Chicago, feared that they too might be a target…and feared what might happen should they open…how much would they plunge.

Through the day, emails from the company came through, pledging to do all they could, informing us of colleagues in New York City.  Telling us that the best thing we could try to do was carry on.

I knew, I think we all knew – we were at war.

What role we would play, and what it meant was still unknown.  As a child, I remembered asking my father where he was when Pearl Harbor happened.  When the America of that time was shattered by the war that had been on the doorstep for years finally hit.  Now I wondered – would my children ask me, where was I when the towers fell?

Would this call for a draft?  Would I be called for duty?  Twenty-five years old, single, the youngest boy in the family – in times past, I’d be the perfect candidate.  No deferment.  Right then and there I pledged that should a deferment be granted, regardless the reason, I’d pass.  I’d fight.

At four o’clock, I headed for the parking lot, one of the last it seemed to leave the building.  All was quiet.  The normal rush hour was muted.  Few cars and people were on the roads, dispite the nice weather.  With all flights grounded, the sky, the airspace seemed very vacant.

I lived with some college friends at the time, and on this beautiful fall day, we sat inside, watching the coverage.  Getting the updates.  Trying to make sense of what it all meant.  The military put on high alert.  Flights grounded.  No air travel.  Nuclear plants guarded by National Guard troops.  Major cities protected with constant fighter coverage.

Then the scenes of hope, of courage.  Congress gathering to sing God Bless America on the steps of the US Capital.  Embassies around the world being covered in flowers and mementos – the world sharing in our grief.

It was terrible.  It was depressing.  It was awe inspiring.  It was uplifting.

That night, going to bed early, with the windows open to the cool night air, I lay there wondering what it would mean, how my life would change, how America would change as I listened to the sound of the fighter jets slowly circling overhead.

 The play done, I headed to my hide out on the lake.  Exhausted from a very long day.

Walking in the door, the air conditioner had it a very cool 70F, and there was a gift of my favorite bars sitting on the counter – thanks to sister-in-law Mary.

It was good to sleep in my own bed, or at least a bed that I owned.  And I slept very well.  But no trip half way around the world is complete without a little jet lag, so after going to bed at a reasonable 10pm, I was wide awake again by 5am. 

It gave me a good chance to unpack and reacquaint myself with my life back in the United States.  It is more difficult people can imagine trying to keep a life going on each side of the globe.  Having friends and a life during normal waking hours while at the same time having family, friends, and a life on during normal sleeping hours can be more challenging then I originally thought.  It is easy to seen to be forgotten.  The papers, the books, the stuff of life is the easy part – the people, the relationships, the friendships – the true values, are the more challenging, and the distance and the time makes one reflect on the value of them, and the value others place on them too.

A lot of thinking, but also a lot of work got done that first morning.  Arranging and rearranging took place.  Digging things out of closets and corners.  Trying to find things that I had missed over the last four months. Trying to get a few things into place.

I had a good omelette for breakfast, and about eight thirty, Dad rolled into the drive way.  We were gathering at nine at the cabin with my brother Tom and his family to go to the Becker County tractor parade.

It was good to visit.

Tom, Mary, and my two favorite nieces pulled into the yard about nine, and we were off to the tractor parade.

I will admit, I wasn’t dressed for the event.  Dad and Tom had the foresight to wear their John Deere caps.

It was an impressive parade that stretched for blocks.  Though it was a little late in arriving, the wait was worth it with a wide menagerie of John Deere, Case, International, Farmalls, Fords, and a few Minneapolis Molines thrown in to boot.

The John Deere hats that Dad and Tom wore earned them immediate street cred with this crew of tractor driving, Johnny Popper enthusiasts.

With the parade done, the rest of the family swung back to the cabin, while I picked up some fresh sweet corn and other fixings at the farmer’s stall on the corner.  We feasted on bratwursts, corn on the cob and thanks to friends Dave and Tracy who showed up with their crew of kids, some good coleslaw and beans to boot!

Dad, Tom, Mary and the girls headed out after lunch to go and see my other brother’s compound in the woods (a combination shed and cabin – aka a shabin, no electricity or running water in a forty acre parcel of trees).  While Dave, Tracy, their kids and I hung out lakeside, fishing, swimming and enjoying a leisurely afternoon.  By the end of the day, their two oldest children, Elana and Derek, were no longer scared of putting their heads underwater!

Tom and his family came back for supper and we had another good meal lakeside as the sun slowly set in the western sky.