One of the most important habits to cultivate for a sustainable and thriving life, including and maybe especially for self-employed people is to learn how to sleep well. Yes, such a basic habit, but sadly, many of us actually don't know how to sleep well. And so I'd like to share with you my favorite tips in this video, what has helped me. And I also welcome you to comment below and share what has helped you as well. All right, so let me go ahead and share with you. There are some one-time preparations. There are some nightly preparations, and then I will talk about what I do to fall asleep and stay asleep each night. So some of the one-time preparations that have really helped me is to make my bedroom as dark as possible by getting blackout curtains. So research has shown that even a little bit of light into the bedroom at night when you're trying to sleep will affect your sleep. So street lamp, light, traffic, driving by, or whatever it may be. So I recommend that you go and buy blackout curtains. They're not that expensive. And in the article link below, I've given a link to find them on Amazon.com if you want to buy it from there. And the other part that's helpful is your bedroom door may have a gap at the bottom that lets in some light or noise. And so it's nice to have a door draft stopper. You can even make it really easy by rolling up a towel that you don't need anymore. Just roll it up and then put it by the door. And that's what we've done. And it really has helped to block out light as well as noise. And then in terms of noise, we also use a white noise machine, which is not expensive. And you could just find it online. And yeah, that really helps to equalize the audio environment for you to sleep because what wakes us up is actually changes in the audio environment, right?  So if the noise environment can be mostly quiet and even, that's the key, even, then we tend to sleep easier. Last thing is for a one-time preparation is to equalize your body temperature as you sleep. I am what's called a hot sleeper. There are cold sleepers and hot sleepers. Cold sleepers tend to find themselves being too cold most nights. And so they need more blankets and they may even need a heating pad. For me, I tend to find myself being too warm at night. So what I did a couple of years ago was to buy something called a chili pad cube, which again, I have the link in the article, chili pad cube. It's not cheap. I think it's several hundred bucks, but it has helped tremendously. I use it every single night and a $400 investment to sleep better for years is probably worth it.  I didn't write about that in the article. I probably should have. But mattress and pillow and blanket, those are obviously basics for the materials, the tools for sleeping well. So those are some one-time preparations. All right. So what about nightly preparations every night as we get ready for bed? By the way, if you have anything that really helps you, go ahead and comment below the video because it might really help somebody else also. What helps me for nightly prep is to be really clear about how many minutes it takes me for each of my evening tasks. And I know it sounds maybe too detail-oriented, but try it out. Just that's all I ask of you. Give this a try and see if it helps you. What I mean is this. Literally write down the tasks you do that you need to do before you can sleep soundly. So for me, I grew up taking a shower at night. So that takes time. And I write down how much time that takes. I also obviously need to use the bathroom, do evening hygiene, like brushing teeth and things like that. So I and I need to make sure that the cat is fed. I might need to do a bit of dishes, floss and things like that. So I've written down specifically, okay, for me to get up from the television, get up from the laptop, finish dinner, and then do these things before I can feel like I can sleep soundly, like I didn't leave anything undone, I have to do a series of tasks you probably do as well. Have you written down how much time each of these things take you? Because if you don't write down, if you don't calculate carefully how much time these things take you, there could be a range. But generally speaking, how much time does these things do these things take you? You write that down, you calculate the times. Oh, wow, I need two hours or whatever it is. I need an hour and a half. I need two and a half hours from the time I get up from dinner to the time I'm in bed, lights out and start to fall asleep, plan that time. So what happens is I now set an alarm at night, well, I've done this for many years, I set an evening alarm, not just a morning alarm, of course, I actually don't even use a morning alarm anymore, I'll talk about that briefly. But the evening alarm is more important, because evening alarm starts your evening tasks, your evening routine, to be able to sleep soundly. So that's what I recommend to you, an evening alarm. Now, one other thing that has really helped me is to move my sleeping time. I used to not be able to sleep until at least midnight, and yeah, I try to go to bed at midnight and it still took time for me to fall asleep, so, and that wasn't helpful for my business, because my business required, you know, I want to be able to, for example, talk to people in Europe, and people in Europe by the time I wake up in Pacific Time, it's already afternoon for them, so I needed to do some of my calls in the morning, my time, and so that's why I had to move my sleep time from midnight to earlier. Now, I sleep every night at about 10.30pm, 10.45pm easily, it used to be hard even to sleep at 12.30am, so how did I move my sleep time? I do it gradually. Our bodies are a finely tuned instrument of equilibrium, body clock. You can't just say, you know, I'm going to start sleeping earlier and that doesn't happen. Your body clock is going to be confused and it's going to, it's a little bit too forceful, so here's what I did. Remember I said, I said an evening alarm time to start my evening routine? Well, I, you know, my evening routine used to start at maybe 10.30pm, right? So I said an alarm and then I moved that 10.30pm to 10.25pm a few nights later, just starting my evening routine just a little bit earlier, and after I got used to that, I moved it to 10.20pm, you know, maybe after a week or whatever it is. And so gradually, my evening routine now starts at 8.45pm, okay? So, but that took time, weeks to move it gradually so that my body clock, you know, was gently moved towards earlier sleeping and therefore earlier waking. So now I naturally wake, I give myself, by the way, in the morning I give myself a waking buffer between 6 and 7pm, so I don't use a morning alarm anymore. I just naturally wake, if I'm waking and it's still 5.30am, it's like, okay, I'll just sleep a little bit more and then I wake up and maybe sometimes it's 7.00am already.  And even at 7.00am, I still have a bit of buffer. I don't have to like, oh my God, I have 20 minutes before my meeting. I still give myself a bit of a buffer. So morning buffer, I think it's really helpful, you kind of gently, like, oh, sometimes I wake up at 6.15am and I'm feeling rested, I'm really ready to wake up and get going and that's great. Sometimes I'm asleep until 7. So giving myself that early, that morning buffer is really helpful. Okay, so finally, I want to share with you, once I am in bed, horizontal, the lights are out, how do I fall asleep and stay asleep? I developed this method I call the spa method, because the steps of the method spell out the acronym spa, S-P-A. So, and this usually helps me fall asleep within 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Anyway, let me explain it to you. So S, so I'm in bed, the lights are out and I start this method as soon as possible. S stands for 60 seconds to stillness, 60 seconds to stillness or simply stillness. And the idea is this, it's such a simple idea, but so many of us don't even realize this. In order to become sleepy and to fall asleep, you need to stop moving your body.  So this really helps me because I used to, like, adjust my blankets, adjust my position, adjust my pillow for like an hour in bed. And that's not helpful and it's frustrating. Some of you probably know that and some of you are probably doing that without even realizing you're doing that.  So I've learned that, okay, 60, you know, I kind of make it a game for myself. Okay, I'm going to start the spa method, I'm in bed, 60 seconds to stillness. So I start counting from zero, knowing that once I count to about 60, I have 60 seconds to fully adjust myself, scratch any itches, get my pillow just right, get my blink. Some of you don't need this, but some of us do. So it's like, okay, adjust everything. And the key is not to get into the most perfect position ever that has no itches, no nothing. The key is I have 60 seconds to get to good enough stillness. Good enough doesn't have to be the perfectly scratched itches or anything. Just good enough where I'm like, okay, 60 seconds, it's good enough for now. It's not going to be perfect temperature, maybe my shoulders slightly cold or whatever. You know, it's nothing, it's not has just good enough, good enough. And then I just stay still as long as I can. And I know that if I stay still, I will feel sleepy soon enough. And once I start feeling tired and sleepy, then I can adjust my shoulder blanket a little bit more to cover my shoulder at this, by this point, I know that my shoulder tends to get cold. So I already adjust within the first 60 seconds. But whatever I can adjust in six seconds, I wait until I'm still enough to be sleepy before I adjust. So that's the first step, 60 seconds to stillness for the S. The next step is P, which stands for peaceful healing breath, peaceful healing breath. And so after the 60 seconds to stillness, I start breathing in, I start, you know, relaxing my body, breathing in peace and breathing out healing. Yes, breathing in peace and breathing out healing. So when I breathe out healing, I'm imagining that my body is being healed. Now there is a interesting story, it gets a little bit strange, but stay with me here. There's a near-death experience story about a woman who was actually, was a veteran in the U.S. military, who she was in, I think it was Afghanistan or somewhere in some war zone, where her convoy got blown up by an IED, a landmine, and she was, she had a near-death experience. Her body was badly damaged, but in her near-death experience, she entered what she called a healing environment, like her spirit. She saw that her spirit or her body apparently, since some dimension was entering a healing environment, there were spirits preparing her body. It was the weirdest thing. Anyway, I linked it in the article where you can watch her interview about this. And basically the spirits were stitching up her body, like spirit doctors. And her recovery was miraculous. She recovered much faster than people who had that kind of body damage, and she attributes it to spirit healing. Anyway, so that story always stuck with me. So I imagine myself also, when I breathe out healing, I'm imagining the spirits are repairing the molecules of my body, my organs, and things like that. So just kind of, so peaceful healing breath is what I do. I just breathe in peace. I breathe out healing. I feel the healings, whatever works for you, whatever internal imagery works for you to imagine yourself being healed, I recommend that as the second step. The peaceful healing breath. And usually just 60 seconds to stillness and then peaceful healing breath for a few minutes usually makes me fall asleep. I'm asleep. I don't even remember the next step. But if I'm still awake after like 15 minutes, if I just notice that I'm still awake after a while, then I move to the next step, which is A. Remember the spa method, S, P, A, 60 seconds to stillness, peaceful healing breath for the P, and then A stands for appreciation. So here is where I enter a state of appreciation. If I'm still awake, I start appreciating various things in my life. And I start with my faith. I start appreciating my spirit support team that is with me, I believe. I really do believe it. It's not just, oh, wouldn't it be nice if that were true? I literally, I have read so much about the spirit world and mediumship and afterlife studies and all that stuff that I literally believe 110%. I believe that there are spirits around us at all times supporting us. But most of us are not, are close to it. So we don't open ourselves to the healing and the support and the love that's available. So I literally, so, so you know, I appreciate, I think them in my mind. You know, thank you spirit support team being around me even now. You guys work so hard all the time and I'm so grateful for you. You know, and so, yeah, so that's what I do. I appreciate my spirit support team. And then if I'm still awake, I move on to appreciating something physical. So I would appreciate, you know, my blankets or whatever happens to be comfortable that night, I will appreciate it. So that's the spa method, 60 seconds to stillness, peaceful healing breath, and then appreciation. And that usually makes me fall asleep. And at the middle of the night, I've always been a light sleeper. And so I usually am only unconscious each night for about four or five hours. I'm unconscious each night. And then after four or five hours, I usually need to, you know, use, use the restroom and then I come back to bed and I'm usually just awake for the rest of the night, for the rest of the eight hours or so. But even, even though I'm kind of lightly conscious for the rest of the hours, I still practice the spa method. I think of it as my nightly meditation. So, so sometimes I usually fall in and out of sleep during that light sleep period before, you know, after the five hours. But I still, when I find myself awake and want to fall asleep again, I do the spa method, spa meditation. And it's just like meditating. And if I find myself awake, I just come back to my meditation. Gently come back to my meditation. And so it's like, it's sort of being awake, thinking about different things, planning the future, worrying about the past, worrying about the present. I'm like, I get to meditate for several hours a night. If, if that happens, sometimes, like I said, sometimes I'm asleep. Sometimes I'm awake. But regardless, here's the secret that I found. As long as I stay horizontal, eyes closed and just trying to relax for about eight hours, seven to eight hours, I wake up the next day. I feel fine. It's the most, but if I find my, if I, if I, I've tested this. If I get up in the middle of the night because I'm awake and mainstream science says you're supposed to get up in the middle of the night. If you're awake, you shouldn't stay in bed being awake and frustrated. That's true. You shouldn't be frustrated in bed. That's not good for your sleep hygiene, but I've shifted that. I'm not frustrated in bed when I'm awake. I am practicing my spa meditation. And so it feels good. I get to appreciate all the different things in my life. I get to experience healing and all that stuff. I tried getting up several, many years. I've tested this over many years. I tried getting up, you know, doing some reading before I go back to bed. And I feel terrible the next day.  But if I just stay in bed and just do my meditation, I feel fine the next day as if I've slept for eight hours. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. This video is going a little bit long. The last thing I'll say is this, every body is different. Every human body is different. So your body may be different than mine. You need to experiment with what works for you to feel fine each day, having slept enough. Some of us sleep for six hours. Some of us sleep for 10 hours. Some of us sleep for two segments at night. Some of us take multiple naps during the day. Whatever works for you to feel energized, you should practice that and practice that faithfully and trust that just because your body is different from what mainstream science says is normal for sleep. I noticed that basically I read many sleep books and try to like force myself to sleep like the sleep books are telling me and over time. And I even bought like technology to monitor my sleep and all. And after a while, I just realized I just have to stop worrying about it. If I stopped worrying that I'm not getting the scientifically proven hours of REM sleep or whatever, after I stopped worrying about it, my quality of life got better. Yeah. So I stopped trying to mold myself to whatever the articles are saying and the books are saying. I just trusted that, hey, if I'm fine during the day, then I'm getting enough sleep. And if I'm not, I'm not fine during the day. That means I need to probably get my evening routine better so that I can have more time in bed. So just trust that you're getting enough sleep once you are working on it and doing some of the preparations and things. So I hope this is helpful. Sleep is, I think the first habit to get well. If you get skillful at sleep, everything else in your life and in your business tends to be a little bit better because you have more energy for setting good boundaries. You have more energy for creativity. You have more energy for just improvisation and relationships and better mood and all that stuff. So I hope you really will work sincerely on your sleep as long as you do the preparations, as long as you have some method that helps you to fall asleep and then just trust after that. So I hope this helps. And if you have anything that helps you to sleep better, I hope you'll add a comment below, not because I need comments on my videos, but I really do hope that if you've discovered something that really helps you just consistently, maybe even for years, let people know. And so, you know, whether you comment below or just tell your friends about it, if everybody could sleep better, I think the world would be a better place. So all right, I hope this helps. I'm George Cow. I usually talk about business development from a more authentic and heart based perspective. So I will see you in the next video and I hope you will sleep better tonight. Take care.


Your coca-cola bottler presents Claudia based on the famous play and novels by Rose Franken Brought to you transcribed Monday through Friday by your friendly neighbor who bottles coca-cola Relax and while you're listening refresh yourself. Have a coke and now Claudia David look come here. Come here right away and look whatever it is. You want me to look at can't wait until I put all my bath Put on your slippers too. Come over the window and look I know it's still snowing. I can see it from here Darling snowing is just the half of it. Oh, all right here. I come now I don't see a thing that just did it snowing so hard. You can't see anything but snow This is a real fall fall. What do you mean fall? This is the middle of January and it's pouring snow like salt. Isn't it beautiful must have snowed all night David, it looks just like a pillow had been torn apart. Why this makes every other snow. We've ever had the plain measly It must have snowed at least 24 inches since yesterday 24 inches two feet at least my own little mathematician. I Can't even see over the Jared Tucker's house. I know it's falling so thick. I could get lost looking for myself All right, come on quick now get dressed I want to get on my train get to the office on a day like today Why not today, but it's pouring snow out a little be pouring snow out in New York Oh boy on New York. Oh Well, I suppose you're right where it comes first certainly does darling. I love your being an architect, but Sometimes I just wish you were rich and stand you do then when it was warm We could play when it was cold we could play when it was snow. We could build a snowman David, why are you standing the window like that you better get dressed you're free What snow is pretty deep Look at the drips over there, but the stone fence they cover up the wall completely good I always hated walls between places. I think that's what's so wonderful about the snow. It's the great equalizer like Lincoln No walls. No fences. No roads even Thank you. Can you see the road? Hey look up towards the barn? To the right. Oh, oh, I see. Yeah, that's a road. Is that where the barn is supposed to be certainly is David It blew away in the night. It disappeared. All I can see is it drift sort of behind that drift sort of lies our barn Well, what do you know? David we can't get into the barn today We'll have to find a way. We'll have to dig a path or something Hey, where you going downstairs to give things the ones over what things what once over wait for me wait I just want to see what's happened in front of the garage and in the driveway Do you mean there is a possibility that we're snowed in? Not only a possibility, but a fact. Oh, how wonderful. Stop talking nonsense. It's no fun to be snowed in Have you ever been snowed in well, no, but I've read it in books. Oh, well more than I have Do I don't think I'd mind being snowed in I think I'd like it No depends upon which way the wind was blowing Well, everything always depends on which way the wind is blowing down Now we're going just to look out the living room. When do you mind? Oh, it's cold No, I don't mind. They will have to turn the heat up higher darn house feels like an igloo Well igloo is a war. Oh nonsense. They can't Mercy just as I suspect we are snowed in the drift of snow in front of the garage five feet high And that driveway is banked up at least Four feet and it'll take hours to to dig that up and to get the car Wonderful my eye. Yeah, it's fine I'm going to get out of here today is more than I can see you're not That's why it's well this night can't stay here stuck in a snow pile for no reason The snow pile is not no reason the snow pile is a very good reason to be stuck in if I didn't know about this last night What would you have done? Come on? Well, I did I did I did I'd have done something I see something well like what gone outside and blown at the heavens and sent the snow something big help How long it would take me to shovel my way out of here There are times David when you just have to face facts and accept them you give in awfully quickly Don't you women know when to give in and women know when to fight a big tall no as a fact to be faced I Give in here. Why are you going calling the town hall? They make the snow every hair of a snow plow. Oh I'm gonna find out about when the snow plow be coming this way David. You're so business-like What do you want to do that for the snow plow comes down the road? I'll catch it so it can clear out the drive and we'll be all set David It'll be days before the snow plow gets way out. That's what you think If necessary, I'll call George Reynolds himself and get some action you would you would you would use Paul I certainly would not not you ashamed. I'm not ashamed. You should be just because we live in the country And it snows a little there's no reason why I have to stay away from my office I don't the operator will after all he's the first select man of Eastbrook What's the matter with this darn instrument David stops shaking the receiver like that it is not a raffle We get the dial tone. Well, maybe there isn't one today. There's always a dial tone Well, maybe today's different because of the snow. Oh, I know telephone lines Now stop suggesting things like that David telephone lines always come down the first thing when there's a storm It's a rule of nature Don't you think that's what it is? Yes, I think that's what it is Don't have to sound so nasty about it. I didn't pull them down everything, but what that means That means that you are delighted that they're down. Oh, no, but you think there's a wonderful joke on me that they're down Yes, but you're hilarious and in stitches because we're snowed in I am I confess Rock bottom you am too. Who says I am perfectly obvious. You wouldn't protest so much Do you know that psychologically speaking all this protesting is just a cover-up for your true emotions? Yes, actually covered up everything.  You think you're very smart, don't you think I'm very smart Well, I bet you the trains aren't even running David Maybe we'll be stranded for days like her mitts together. I wonder how mama is don't worry about mama Mama's in New York. Lucky mama. Yeah, I won't be able to phone her all day Yeah, sure you will the telephone lines will be fixed fairly soon But if she tries to call me, she'll worry the operator will tell her that the lines are down I know but then she'll worry even more now darling.  I'll turn around.   Say it again.  No, it's nice for today Just you and me David admit it. You cannot dig your way out. Can you? Well, if I could I would but you can't nobody could not even you David So am I I'm hearing bells. What are you hearing doorbells? No, sensible man would be out on a day like that you would be if I weren't holding you back by brute for Cannibal's new could be except Well, whoever it is got most terrific Constitution as I live in here come in hurry up before you get blown away. Come on.  It looked like I come out to do Everything all right, how's the lot is she all right everything's tipped up ma'am. Why all the questions? What about your animals? What about them? What is she came over about I didn't come over about nothing I was just out taking a walk and figured out drop in and say hello Just just just taking a walk. Do I look like I've been swimming? Or my eyes what's matter ma'am, but how did you get here on a day like today? Ambled on me two legs. Mr. Tucker you are quite a fellow. I had to walk son Was no car big and strong enough that could make the roads Yep, when you get down to rock bottom a man's only got his legs to depend on I guess you're right No storm makes you realize you can't put your faith in modern contraptions as your phone broken down that dang instrument It's wishy-washy as a woman too much rain blink too much. No blink too much this that's and I let gadget poops right out Yes, it's brass tacks it makes man reckon with yourself.   I sure hope I ain't messing up your house here You're not snow melts to me this weather any day I say the kind of weather that separates the chaff from the week I ain't got no fears of this kind of weather. Nope. I can bite my false teeth into it Get a good bite of it tussle with it rattle with it It's me against whatever it is the sky has got a dish out It's me Jared Tucker what wins every time well, I certainly like you champion this time. What do you say about it son? No, I Haven't thought of it quite in your way Well, think of it sunny weather you depend on a car a telephone and electrical train Then the world closes in on you can't drive your car because you can't get down to your garage The telephone's busted train ain't running what he got left just yourself And that's where I come in Jared Tucker versus the weather keeps you alive son It's the tussle that keeps you alive I guess that's the outlook that you get when you've lived with the weather so long live with the weather so long Why the weather and me have come to know just what we can expect of each other and I ain't afraid Though the weather might be Well Yes, I'll be seeing you for mr. Tucker. Where are you going back to July before she starts work now now listen your sister will worry She knows you better to worry about you women always worry Builds them up to work and it belittles a man so women always worry Gotta get back before she starts worrying Thank you for the visit, but you keep thank you mr. Tucker. I think nothing of it son Now I'll be saying mr. Tucker. Yeah, well you ain't got nothing better to do this afternoon drop on in hey Oh, yes, we'll do that. Hey, what where you're going? Don't fall in the drift. Oh, don't worry about me son Hey, I got a better nose for snow than a big deal than a big deal per rabbit. I better shut that door for you Buddy guess he's old man weather himself David where you going get dressed Dressed what for I can't start shoveling our way out in pajamas and slippers darling. It's hopeless. You're great It's hopeless. Are you hinting that I'm not the man that Tucker is David come back here? You're not as young as Tucker is In your eyes your youngsters are no doubt different from all others But in some ways all teenagers are alike. They all seem to dot on coca-cola It means sociability and good times to them if you keep plenty of coke on ice You'll earn the thanks of your own children and their friends as well Well, Joe, what do you think of that old man? Jared Tucker? Certainly not as old as his age David Tell me you're going to get into town. No, I'm gonna make a good stab at it You can bet your life on that if I were you I wouldn't even make a stab at it I'm not going to let Jared Tucker show me up. I'll tell you that much Stop worrying about it. You see the trains aren't running David. So no use bucking the drifts is Is that the real dope Joe? That it is David. Oh well Well in that case, I'll just have to sit back and enjoy the snow I guess Hey, I wonder how soon it'll be good for skiing Joe. Oh Monday. I think Monday is early Is that the real dope too? Well, you'll find out on Monday David Tell the truth. I don't mind if I do. I'll see you then Joe knee-deep in a drift. No doubt. So long David Every day Monday through Friday, Claudia comes to you transcribed with the best wishes of your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola So listen again Monday at the same time And now this is Joe King saying or of war and remember Whoever you are whatever you do wherever you may be When you think of refreshment think of Coca-Cola or Coca-Cola makes any pause the pause that refreshes and Ice-cold Coca-Cola is everywhere The parts of Claudia and David on this program were played by Catherine Bard and Paul Crabtree and The entire production is supervised and directed by William Brown Maloney Now here's a word from your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola


To the December 4th, 2023 meeting of the Code of Maritime Redevelopment Board, I'm standing to order. My name is Rachel Zemberry. I'm the chair of the Redevelopment Board, and I'll ask the other mentors of the board to please introduce themselves. Steve Rebeli, good evening. Eugene Benson. Shayna Hall from Houston. Gene Lowe. And we have Claire Ricker, the director of the Department of Planning and Community Development joining us. Great, let's jump into our first agenda item, which is agenda item number one, the meeting minutes from November 20th, 2023. I will see if there are any changes or corrections to the minutes starting weekend. No. Steve? No changes. Gene? No changes. Shayna? I don't have any either. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from November 20th, 2023 as submitted? It's a motion. Second. We'll take a vote starting with Steve? Yes. Ken? Yes. Shayna? Yes. Gene? Yes. And I may ask as well, those meeting minutes have been approved. And number two, which is consideration of the citizen board article. We welcome John Leo. Good evening. And the evening, who is interested in discussing with the board a rebounding of five to seven Windsor Street to be in the MBTA communities overlay district. And I believe that there is a discussion around which of the two districts perhaps. Or is it the neighborhood public district? It could be more appropriate and labeled in multiple districts. Okay. Why don't you clear unless you have any introduction that you'd like to make? Sure. Just really quickly pointed forward. Marisa put this drawing together for us this afternoon, which I think really tells the story here. In gray, you can see the neighborhood multifamily as was submitted to the OHLC and the attorney general's office. This is what time meeting voted on. And here is Mr. Leo's parcel. This parcel was likely removed when the board had the conversation about potentially leaving some of the immediate parcels immediately behind commercial development on Mass Ave. You know, potentially anticipating some aggregation. This was one of the parcels that was under that was removed either as part of that process or because it was on the national register of historic places. When we looked at alternate two, which is ultimately what the board went with in terms of the overlay for the entire MBTA communities, we started to look sort of to the north, I guess, west of Mass Ave. And include some area around Schwannville. We were concerned in the community about historic properties that may be included in the overlay. And so we did make a call to try to as many of the properties as we could identify with data. On the national register, it should not include those in the district. And that's really the background, I think, in terms of from where the department is. Great. Thank you very much. So this is not my book, my house. It's my family's house. My grandparents bought this property in 1957, 1956. And we've maintained it ever since. They've been there till they passed. And family members have been living there. And the last 10 or 12 years, we've rent out the first floor to a super mom, who's basically... I don't get where you're at. But as you can see, the house is a very large parcel for Arlington. I think it's around 18,000 square feet. It's been on the National Historic Registration Center before, but so has number 13, which was introduced in the register during the same introduction phase. And I don't know how many others are in the district. It's kind of hard to track them down. I don't really have a good read on what it is and what it is inside. It's going through the register and picking up all the houses. So I don't think that should be a reason to exclude our house. The property itself, obviously, because it's on the district, we couldn't do anything to it unless we paid for one of the historic commissions or some of the art commissions. Not that we have any plans to do anything through the building. You know, we've had maintenance out of that which put a roof on it. So we're not letting people into the room in the hopes of knocking it down. That's not our plan. We want to preserve all our options. The size of the lot, and talk about adaptation. We have to see the role of storefronts here. They may want to take a data to the Mass App district and go up. That might cause them to possibly be interested in this part of the lot, which wouldn't touch the house structure itself, but it will allow them to use that for different needs to build it. Or we could explain the house backwards and not touch the front or the two front sides and add on to the back of the house for additional housing. That was the reason I think the Warren article itself is included in just to consider those options in the future. Otherwise, we have the potential to literally be surrounded by everybody around us and go to the library and maybe the town wants to do some of that. If all of those build up, we'll be in this little bone house within a whole bunch of six to four to six-story buildings. We can be kind of sad to waste that person. That's what our goal is. There are many options in the future. I'm one of six children. We all think this is something we want to consider and go forward with. So I'm going to bring the Warren article, but my preference would be for you guys to go or to adopt that Warren article. I'm not quite sure. It said why we were excluded in the first round, whether it was on purpose or out of the state or what happened. I think the neighborhood district would be more appropriate than the Nassau district because unless the storefronts wanted to do something, there's a couple of different owners of those storefronts. This is owned by one person, one family. These are owned by, I think these three are owned by different families. So it's not a piece of bone that will lock stores. They're back, if they're building, it's not really on property. So there's not a lot of extra room here. So that's kind of what we are doing. Before I put on this cap, because the warrant does open, I believe, a week or so. So we've done that cap one time. We've worked that in the process. I think it's a discussion. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe I'll start, and then we can each kind of give you our steps because we did have a really truncated discussion about this. We didn't have much opportunity for the special town meeting this fall to have an discussion about the citizen petitions that came forward. So the property was removed because of the fact that it was on the national register. The board had requested in response to community feedback and the board's own preference for all projects that are on the national register to be removed. If one was not, that was in error. That was the direction of the board was to have them all removed. So at the time, it was our preference not to spot by allowing one here and not there, the intent was to remove all of those particular properties with the opportunity, obviously, in the future for anyone in town who can request a zoning change at any time. So I think that this is absolutely a great time to be discussing this. I agree with you. I think that the neighborhood sub-district makes the most sense as opposed to the Bassett and Broadway sub-district. I personally, when an applicant is looking to rezone their property, I personally prefer that it remain a citizen petition rather than a board sponsor. But it doesn't mean that the board wouldn't potentially in the future vote and not vote in favor of it. So that would, of course, be my preference, but that's kind of a high level of my issue of law. I agree with you, Rachel. The intent when we first did this was not to send you out, but it was to exclude all historic structures. Yes, the register, not the sub-district. And if you missed their team, you missed their team. It was quite a frenzy at the time trying to figure out all properties along there. We have to go back and correct ourselves if we have to do that. But when your article did come back up to us, I believe we were supportive of your work article. None of the stuff we were, we indicated that we would be if we came back as a citizen petition, but not as an individual amendment. Yes, and I agree with you, Rachel. If you don't like the spot zone as a board, we recommend you make a change. And I, as a board member, would be supportive of that spot change because it's a great argument and it does make sense. I might go as far as if you go either way, if you could be zoned with mess app. And that would be nothing. But don't forget, in front of this one, we excluded those because it's a part of the East Arlington. I want to say that you'd be part of that rezoning later on with mess app. Because those shops are very shallow, very, very not compliant unless they have some room behind what you have. So to me, it's a natural potential, you know, to include your property with those along mess app. And, you know, even if the building still wants to remain in stock, you can be moved.  And that's one of the issues we have right now with some of our commercial space along mess app. So I would be supportive of you. The other way is to be able to just doing along mess app. And that may be something that you can find later on. That's what we do with mess app. There's many opportunities for you because of the location where you're at. And the size of the parcel. And the size of the parcel, yes. Yes, but your parcel is a little bit on the landlock side. But yes, it is. It's very hard to fit something new in that dog. You're right. Without the grandfather for that, well, footprint of that dog, but that open space there is just definitely right. The dog may become the open space, I'm not sure. Yeah, frankly, the barn, even though we keep the other side, it's just, you can't steer it. The floor is on the locus most. I don't think there's that many bars left in here. Was there? No, not on the other side. I remember looking at that when we were at the library, and I looked at it, it's quite huge. It's back with that was, this was part of that, right? This house originally was here facing mess app. And they picked it up, moved it, and then sorted it from there. Okay. So that's when we had a circular drive on the back of the barn from the mess app. We did a project in the history of the house. We had a research. Okay. We moved it, I think, four nights into one. And they played the source. At that point, that didn't move. Yeah. No. I'm just, I'm just a sport of whatever you guys are saying, but it would definitely recommend going with a citizens partition. Not a board decision, but one block. Shana? Great. I would, I would kind of, I think it seems like a very appropriate parcel for the district of Holland, and the city of Holland, who supported the city's education. Okay. James? I would too, but I'll tell you how I get there. Okay. Excuse me. I recommend you not to terminate it. And don't even know. Because I felt the last moment, which was when the road was too smooth, it's nearly out of shape to many others. And that would have to be done, and at least set out into the historical commission ahead of time. So I felt that without that, it was pretty mature. Because I put on the commission to come to town with it. I was under the impression that all of the historical, all of the buildings under the National Register were excluded from the tourist supplies. And I don't have any information that all of them were not. So I think that is possible. The other thing I'll just mention is, we will at some point, reason why that's hard to say, I mean, probably until next week or so. If we put those parcels that face the National Register, into the National Overlevels, if we'll have to put it down, under the Bible that was supposed to pass, if one of those were to purchase more of the parcel, we could go into the National Register, if they wanted to. So we wouldn't have to resume that position. For the National Register, we could be able to resist it. Because where we ended up, if a parcel in both districts were then close to that from what they said before, by the National Register, so we wouldn't need to make that decision. But now, I think we could put it where we want it to be, and let it go into this domain. So I would be supportive, but I would just have to do that with the neighbors. And I'd consider all the neighbors have my name, or be added, I would assume that they're not with me. It also happened to the historical commission to see what they had to say. I'm just curious, your family and property then, not onto the National Register, what was your family's role in that? Nothing. Nothing? I don't understand what happened. We've been at the age of four. I don't remember having any kind of discussion at that point about it. Grandparents would have passed. My father at that point didn't have any projects. Because he could look back and say, this is our house, and at that point, you know, he was living there. Your father was a writer? Yeah. That was my idea. Yeah, it was. Some idea was happening, but it was one of those things. Bringing in these 70 or 80 projects, and they're one of them. But it was kind of a mass introduction of the National Register. Do you know if your house is also on the town? Is it Joanne or Pellas? Joanne and Pellas are kids. Yeah. And that's an album. I think the story is, it's not a national story. Well, not every life crown, not every property that's on the town. It's on the town. It's on the town. I don't know. But, you know, if you get to the labels and historical conditions and information, you're probably going to see everything that was true. You should take a look at the zoning of the people as it requires you to do register and sort of understand the rules to the developers and the people in this process. So don't forget that. It's important. Okay. Do you want to email the police at the site on your mobile? Yeah. And I think, Claire, the department can help with understanding what the outreach hope is. Absolutely. Perfect. That's it. Thanks. Great. I'm also supportive of including that property and being able to come again with this one. Noting that, you know, it was immediately to the southwest is a strip of, a fairly narrow strip would be three parcels. You know, I would also be willing to get our game saved but concurrently rezoning changing the base zoning to be three. Yeah. This may change, as Mr. Vincent said, this may change in a few years, but in terms of having flexibility to allow this person properties to extend reworded in the future. Yeah, it may be something you want to consider. Okay. Okay. Thoughts for me would have a perfect public comment. Okay. Absolutely. Great. Absolutely. Absolutely. Anyone? I think it was to tell you sorry, you could just introduce yourself for the record. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. I'm a charitable private and historical mission that's overseen this. And it was in 1980s that's when police were put on for the next year. I think that's in the document that you had. You know, I found out that this is mine. I just might be familiar with and say that, you know, one of the things that particularly we would like to see is that, yep, the houses could be, you know, retained and mapped for some use, like, you know, the original idea for your work. That's something we would support because we feel that these are big houses. They could be reduced. And so, you know, that's my perspective on this kind of thing. And I can provide a list of, I think there were some other mistakes. I just come down here in terms of which ones are actual and there's sometimes different ones that aren't. And some of them are very important these houses that were built for people who were running the town at that time. And I can tell you a little bit of history, but great, thank you. And I think you make a good point around the fact that putting or asking the town to approve changing the zoning to the neighborhood but the neighborhoods of the district does not necessarily identify how specifically this would be redeveloped into the way Robinson's point, right? There are multiple ways of retaining the existing structure. Exactly. The Carrick House is also on the National Register. This is the town? It's just the houses. So, as the Carrick House, I was looking at various information. That's the piece on the property and some property all of the buildings on that piece of property are in history. So, that's the way it works. I think I just thought I could come and send you two sets. Thank you. That's helpful. Here's some of your outreach now.  So, would anyone else like to speak? Do you agree? I agree. So, we'll close public comment and it sounds like unless you have any other questions that the board is generally supportive. Obviously, we'll, you know, if you decide to go with the citizen petition, we will hold a cold hearing once that is identified as an article that will move forward towards the warrant. Or anything unforeseen, it sounds like the board has we'd also like to share as if the board is supportive of the commission. We appreciate it. Yeah, we're going to go forward. Okay, great. It just makes more sense if you would thank Sonora. All right. Thank you very much. I think you're going to come up with one of the ones that you considered. Yeah, I was not talking about it. I didn't know who I was in the neighborhood secretary. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So with that we will close agenda item number two and open agenda item number three which is the discussion of the board plans for 2024. So we have identified that we would follow up on some of the items that were so open from the board retreat that was called yesterday. Yesterday. It seems so long ago but it was yesterday. What has happened? And there were two specific items and there it looks like we have at least one of those the administrative approval of signs. Correct. Is that Jean from you? So maybe we'll start with that as one of the open items of the board game. So Jean I'll hand it over to you. I sent something this morning I hope everybody can look at it. So I should stop by apologizing for being so wrong yesterday because I was very wrong yesterday. If you can take a look at the actual rule it's even more stricter than I have remembered. So it really allows you to review your sign-mob applications. So it doesn't even allow you to build them. I don't think that's the way this has been happening since the sign law was updated nearly four years ago but take a close read that says administrative may be considered administrative approval so that seems to be only if they're sign-mob applications and then it gives you a answer. So the only way you could approve you're only going to approve the sign if it's a sign-mob application and it's the same elimination as for the existing sign other than that it sort of seems to be the department most of the sign permits need to come to us unless we want to lose regulations to give more authority to the department than it has in the company. Is there specific suggestion related to that that you would like to propose? I haven't talked to Claire about it so I don't know what you're thinking is how much you're sign-mob industry I think it's an interesting question and it's one that obviously it's a we kind of it's it has been a little bit of a balance tricky to balance you know what is so minor that you don't want to necessarily put and what it's you know to burden the board or the applicant the very board or the applicant you know it is a $500 application you know and there are times from the application it's pretty minor you know whatever going from a non on the side the other requirements of the zoning there's that one you know kind of stick in there which is the we're going from the non on the non on the non I think I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to sort of I need to But generally, we have tried to stay within the constraints of the sign, by law, as such as we can, without bringing things that are, sort of, minor, relative to the managing of that. It's actually going from, to, with all of our conditions in that. So I guess my question is, if, the way I read this, any new sign, no matter what occasion, could not be subject to administrative review. And so my question is, should we broaden this, so that the only signs that might be administrative review are the signs that don't meet the high risk criteria, you know, that don't meet one of the requirements where the board is in authority to weigh or adjust under the requirements. Just right now, this is very narrow, if there were, you know, a new building that would have to be part of, you know, to administrative review, including a sign, including a sign, you know, all of the standards. So that's, do we want it, and it brings us to you in the board. Do we want to make this broader, so that the department can prove administrative review any sign that applies with the part of the person. But you still want to read it to just sign it. Steve, do you have a second? Sure. I would be, you know, it depends on how the director feels. But I would be okay with the administrative review for the reason why it would be, you know, the letter of the requirements would be the requirement. And saving our role for when applicants want to go into contact. You know, I also think there's, you know, maybe you want to have a discussion about whether bullet items number five and six of roll 18, you know, requiring the same elimination were not eternally eliminated. You know, whether we want to continue to keep that in place. I agree with the administrative review. It means that generally with the dialogue makes a lot of sense. I think potentially reserving the right report to review and saving our queue locations with high-profile signs would be worth considering. I agree. I think that the word may be considered allows for some of that flexibility. In fact, we had a set of signage that came in front of us recently that was marginally in compliance and because of the fact that there were multiple signs on the building that the department did elect to present the reports that we could have a discussion which I appreciated. So I think that that particular modifier may give the department a certain kind of flexibility there. And I agree with Steve that removing the criteria that specifically speaks to elimination, whether it's an eliminated sign or a non-eliminated sign, I believe that the signage by law is suitably prescriptive in terms of what types of elimination are allowed. And if it meets those and the other criteria, again, the planning department feels that they have the bandwidth to review and that it's not in the location where they can deal with it's important for the development board to weigh in. I would be fine with removing the elimination requirements of the department and review whether it is eliminated or non-eliminated. I think the intent we first tried to modify the signage package was to give the planning board more flexibility in improving signs so that it wasn't such an audience process of going through a whole planning board meeting for a simple sign. That was very minor. And I will hardly agree with that. I mean, it's just small minor changes. We have all the faith that you guys will do the right thing and you have. So I have no objections to this at all. You should do another thing. You should make whatever changes to the signage article or bylaw that would empower maybe I think you're correct. But they already does give her that authority. I don't know. But I would say let's make that change to make happen. Well, I think we would use basically what we would need to do by relating to the rules of law. Right. There's so many modifications that we would need to do. What that we would get really a lot of potential to get would basically say Signs on property side. Signs on property side. And we would get rid of all the things that we wouldn't need at all. And we would say if the sign proposal doesn't require the requirements of its own bylaw then it needs to come to us. And then there's a sense that's still there that we wouldn't need since the parking is not required to provide a minister of authority. Maybe when we pull that application to the board. And then we can pull in something like a shell and throw it to the board. I don't even think that's the right way to put it. So I'm not going to go into that. I think what here again that this, this, if we, if we put this in terms of saying that the administrative approval by the director of planning for the development or the science or subject to administrative approval by the director of planning for the development or science that meets the zoning and general bylaw conditions. The department may, you know, again we can talk about how they may refer the sign to environmental design review. I know the bottom line of the question is, except for how signs and things like that come to us. So I think the way to do this would just be to say on signs, I'm not sure exactly who and who the government may approve signs that are criteria for that. One, the signing of the zoning requirements. Two, there are no, no, no, no, general bylaw regulations. That's standing in the curriculum. And then that's all we would need in that whole category. Just two and three? Yeah, just two and three. Yeah. And then we would do the first real introductory sentence. And then we would take them to kind of like that. We would, like, decide what kind of zone. And then we would kind of, we would require you to just do something inside of the major and make these signs. Right. Is that what you're doing? So it's going to sign modification to it. The new signs or sign modifications. Right. Or it comes just out of the beginning. Sure. So we can, we can, like, we can just see what we're doing. Why don't we do that to the fellows? And that just gives us a little bit more work to do. But I think overall, it would be better for the business. So it should be less work than alone, right? If you're on the processing side of the patients, especially for an apartment when they're unnecessary. Do that. Do you? So, should there be any, do you? Do you know if the building department currently assesses a fee? Thank you already. Thank you. For a sign? For a sign. Perfect. This is a review application. Oh. Right? Yes. Yeah. Let me, you know, I'm not prepared to answer that question, I think, right now this evening. But it's absolutely, yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I think it's something we should certainly look into. I would not make it equal to a special party fee. No, no, no. Okay. Well, there is the procedure, and we can just leave the procedure and the product and the, et cetera. That's probably what we need to be able to do. The last item on the page. So that probably does it. Because that would be done together or not. There was an industry. Thank you. Great. Thanks. We will update that.   Great. Great. I would turn it over to you to see if there are any other topics from the Border Treaty that you wanted to follow up on today. Sure. Thank you. I think one thing that we did not get to last night, we should consider what we had for a potential urban renewal area. And I think the way that we could do that, as I can have the department look at a few suggestions in the areas that might be a good urban renewal plan. The first area that needs to be aligned is our own consent. Especially if we could make it personal. I think that it would qualify on their state. Schedule for a potential urban renewal plan and redevelopment. I think that we should certainly look into doing what is sooner than later. Just simply because it accepts the responsibility of the property, which is important. But I do think we need to start things from certain areas relative to what we do in urban renewal. I think that I'm sorry, I'm obviously going to have to look at the math for thoughts initially right now about where we may want to do a program like that. We can even do one parcel in terms of urban renewal that is considered as well. We would look for some common mark or really many corrals that we could even ten-part out at least something that could be an area that could be done. Urban renewal could be a problem. So I think what I would like to do is at our next meeting on the 18th is proposed for new areas that we can look at and do some research and check for any of the parts that are not necessarily being built out to full terms in the zoning. I know we've talked potentially during the street in the past, but certainly it should be a good part of our discussion. I certainly hope to volunteer and help sit in on the meeting with you guys and you guys first do this and I will be very interested in that since I do have a little history and just look at our properties and turn it over quick in class as far as if it's viable or not and I've been looking at some of these properties for quite some time now. There's a spark, you know. That's okay. It wasn't two or one okay. Two is five, three is nine. Okay. We learned that. Okay. So just let me know and I will try to like sometime later. I know it's the Hall of Lazy Christmas and all that but I would try my best. Okay. Thank you again. What is where is Dutley Street? I totally got that wrong. Dutley Street is what I was just saying. My apologies. That makes more sense now. That makes more sense. All right. Okay. Gene. No good idea. Thank you for looking at that. It was a great mention of the other day. The rest of the community. I was in the process. Yeah. Great. Steve. So I'm in favor of the notion of pursuing or considering our renewal plan in terms of other things or things that we didn't quite get to yesterday. Pikebuffers. Yes. We need to review. I think what we should do is hold that section on to a future meeting, whether it's for the 18 or the first meeting in January, which is the eighth. It would be good to pull the background information again so that we can come to some. The grid is on the scope and the references that need to be included in the board article language. What's the warrant? The warrant article closes in January, January 26th. Thank you very much. It always comes back. So I think that on the eighth, we should be working towards the language that we would like to see because we'll have one more meeting than I believe to finalize the language before the warrant is. We just said it. We have the eighth of the 22nd. Right. That's right. But I think if we have a discussion on the eighth, if there's any follow-up, it's necessary. We can do that in that vote on those of the 22nd. If that works for everyone. Okay. Please. The sketch and model. Oh. Shows the mass of the buildings and the totals. Sure. That's part of that discussion for the eighth? Yes. Okay. If we just do the motion and you do it later, I just want that as part of the process of the sort of understanding if that's okay. We'll reduce that buffer. Correct. Anything else? G. So we have a discussion to look at the mass of architectural access work and to do that. And I told the language which I'll tell you somewhere but I'm just reading the fuel. And I suggest it be a general condition for the special point of view, which is now in the general conditions that we should be. And we could do similar, put a similar, not identical provision in the site plan of privilege in this area. And I would say it should be one of the general conditions. This special permit in the environment that we approve of is conditioned upon compliance with the condition set on the area. And then you have a forms of a new grant with the state government that will be applicable with the mass of architectural access in the relation. That's the exact language that's in the zone of money. In my view on this, people get the approval. They never go back. Right. And we'll suggest this now. So this should be, yes, I know, you know, things don't get into templates. Yep. That's been suggested. So including the decision language. That makes a lot of sense. Is maybe the first of the general conditions. Before the trash movement. Yes. Thank you. Much more for you. Do we need to hold it here until we make that change? No, no. Is that a thing? It's ours. Okay. Anything else? Okay. All right. Let's close agenda item number three. Moving forward. We don't have anyone joining us this evening. So we will move on from agenda item number four to agenda item number five. New business clear. Sure. So my great piece of new business. Good news. This week is that we have someone who's accepted. The assistant manager position and is working through the process of background check right now. She's interested in starting the students next week. So definitely, you know, pending the background check. We do have an assistant director. Certainly for the particular. Congratulations. Very excited to be here. Great. Can't wait to meet her. So very business. No. She is. No. Jean. No. Jean. I did it. We did it. We did it. So we did hear back today. And I was accepted for. I turn my. So it currently aspires. I believe. Congratulations. Thank you. I. Water says. Fantastic. Well, those two pieces of good news. So. We did it. So we did. And it was accepted for. My term was renewed. So. So it currently aspires, I believe. A. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. The water says. pieces of goodness. Is there a motion to adjourn? So motion. I'll second. The vote is starting with Steve. Yes. Gene. Yes. Shayna. Yes. Finn. Yes. And yes as well. This meeting is adjourned.


The cluster mission was launched in 2000 as ESA's first cornerstone project, along with SOHO. Two Russian Soyuz rockets were used to deliver two cluster spacecraft into their proper orbits by July and August of that year. The four satellites reached their final tetrahedral constellation by the end of August. The commissioning of 44 instruments was completed five months later, ensuring optimal use of their observational potential. The mission was declared operational on February 1, 2001. The main goal of the cluster mission is to study small-scale plasma structures in key plasma regions such as the solar wind, bow shock, magnetopause, polar cusps, magnetotail, and auroral zones. With its unique capabilities of three-dimensional spatial resolution, cluster plays a major role in the International Solar Terrestrial Program, ISTP. The payload consists of state-of-the-art plasma instrumentation to measure electric and magnetic fields from quasi-static, up to high frequencies, and electron and ion distribution functions from energies nearly 0EV to a few MEV. Science operations are coordinated by the Joint Science Operations Center, JSOC, at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK and implemented by the European Space Operations Center, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany. A network of eight national data centers has been set up for raw data processing, physical parameter production, and distribution to end-users worldwide. This article was authored by C. P. Escubette, M. Ferringer, and M. Goldstein. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Let's turn to our Bibles to John chapter 12 and we're going to be looking at verses one through eight and one through 11 and I've titled this message a fragrance that fills the room and As we're preparing for the Christmas season a lot of us spent a lot of time with family this last week celebrating Thanksgiving and it was a time of Eating a time of fellowship and it gives us a clear picture of the heart of Jesus And so tonight as we look at this we're gonna take a look at an act of worship This message is gonna center on Worship this message is gonna center on our style of worship to the Lord as we take a look at a beautiful picture of what worship is and So what I want to do is I want to read the first eight verses and then we'll get into our study But let's pray real quick you guys again. Jesus blessed this time We ask that your name is glorified and honored. Holy Spirit. We invite you here in Jesus name. Amen Then it verse chapter 12 verse 1 then six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was who had been raised who had been dead whom he raised from the dead There they made him a supper and Martha served But Lazarus who was one of those who sat at the table with him Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil a spike nard anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his And noted I'm sorry nor the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil But one of his disciples Judas Iscariot Simon's son who would betray him said Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denari and given to the poor? Then he said not that he that he cared for the poor But because he was a thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it But Jesus said let her alone. She has kept this for my day of burial for the poor You have with you always but me you don't always have one thing that stands out about Jesus is his love for people Jesus spent a great amount of time Loving and ministering to them the New Testament points out that Jesus would often eat meals with different people The importance of eating and dining back in those days were Was meant that you were accepted and that you would accept the people that you had over and Jesus simply loved the people and Enjoyed spending time with them and reaching out to them and ministering to them and and fellow shipping with them Some of Jesus's greatest lessons were given as he was eating meals with his disciples and Matthew chapter 9 verses 10 through 13 while sitting at the table with many tax collectors and sinners Jesus's message was I call it I come to call the sinners to repentance and Luke chapter 7 verses 36 through 50 a Pharisee invites Jesus to eat with him where a woman comes to an anoints his feet and His message was to him little is forgiven the same loves little And Luke chapter 10 verses 38 through 42 Jesus is welcome into the home where one sister is caught up in serving and worried about her sister not helping her and and as She sat at the feet of Jesus and her and Jesus's message at that time was but one thing is needed So we see that Jesus has given lots of great instruction during times of meals And here we have another meal that is presented in this lesson that I think we can really embrace Here the context tells us in verse one that this event took place during the last week of Jesus's ministry Here in verse one We're given a timetable of when this is gonna take when this is taking place and it says it's six days before the Passover This is Jesus's last week It's his passion week before he would be brutally executed on the cross His amazing love for others and fellowship with others even the face of his brutal death, and that's just who our Jesus is Selfless and we see here that the context in the setting here is one week before he's crucified In verse two we see that they made him a supper and Martha served Lab but Lazarus with one of those who sat at the table with him Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spiked nard In order the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the room and the house was filled with a fragrance of the oil The sitting the setting that we have here in Matthew chapter 26 verses 6 through 8 tells us that this house belonged to a man named Simon the leper It also reveals that Jesus and the rest of disciples were here at this at this meal as well It's interesting to point out that Matthew That Matthew and Mark do mention Simon the leper, but here in the book of John. We don't see that Simon is mentioned He was a previous leper who had been cleansed by Jesus And so it's important to point out that this dinner could have been given for one or two reasons This could have been a dinner of appreciation for Jesus cleaning cleansing Simon the leper or it could have been Jesus that is being honored with a supper and gratitude For raising Lazarus from the dead I could imagine this conversation that was going on around this dinner table if I was able to be a Fly on the wall during that conversation. This is what I would imagine that would take place I could imagine Simon the leper or the ex leper saying you can't imagine what it was like I saw the scabs fall off my hand and my fingers grew back in place and I reached up and touched my face And I was able to feel it and I was healed For leprosy is a disease known in the biblical times that was a flesh eating disease It would cause skin sores and nerve damage and muscle weakness and it got worse over time then perhaps I can imagine Lazarus interrupting and Said no, no, no that's no way Simon. That's nothing Yeah, what Jesus did for you was great, but I was dead in the tomb for four days And you know it was a good thing about this as I went to paradise and I seen Abraham I seen Isaac I seen Jacob But I tell you the most amazing thing that I saw is when I came back to the tomb and had the rags removed from my face and Everyone's eyes were this big I could imagine that conversation that was going on But we see in verse 2 that there was a supper that was made and Martha served But Lazarus was the one who sat at the table with them Martha served Martha's serving as Well as we see in verse 3 that Mary is worshiping and this is the same Martha who not too long ago and Luke chapter 10 verse 38 42 was the one that was complaining Lord tell my sister to come help me in the kitchen and serve And once again Jesus says leave her alone for what she is doing the one thing is needed which was sitting at the feet of Jesus Martha had once misplaced her priorities in serving, but no more she is serving but now she's serving with the proper heart and the key to service and Deserving the Lord is a natural response of thankfulness and love for the Lord I like what pastor David says. He says do you know that we are saved to serve We are all have been saved to serve the Lord We have not been saved for our own works We have been saved to serve the Lord The fact is what you worship You will always sacrifice for and you will serve Isn't that amazing that whatever it is that you worship? You will always sacrifice for it and you will serve Luke chapter 4 verses 5 through 8 says the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the Kingdoms of the world and he said to him I will give you all their authority and splendor for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to so if you worship me it will be all yours and Jesus answered it is written worship the Lord your God and serve him only Whatever it is that we worship We serve Think about those things tonight in your life that have a tendency to consume your thoughts What are those things tonight that are consuming your thinking? What are those things that are keeping you up in the middle of night that has grabbed all your attention? What are those things? What are those things that you put a whole lot of energy into and and what happens is that we become so wrapped up In it that we begin to turn our worship towards it and we begin to serve it It can be your marriage It can be your job It can be your position It can be somebody But whatever it is that we put our attention to and whatever it is that's consuming our thoughts. That's what we're worshiping Ask yourself tonight What do I find myself thinking about the most during the day? What are those things that are worrying me? What are those things that are eating me up inside? That have consumed my thoughts and whatever it is whatever it is if it begins to shadow Or overshadow our worship for the Lord Then it's become your god Because whatever we worship we serve And god plainly said in exodus chapter 20 verse 3 That you shall have no other gods before me Our worship is for god only The fact is is that service to god is often expressed through service to others Faith needs to be expressed by actions or it's not genuine James chapter 2 verse 26 says as the body without the spirit is dead So faith without works is dead And you know you guys i've been convicted of this in my own life Because my faith in jesus and my service to god needs to be expressed through others And how am i to do this? i'm to love love Love is how we express our service and our worship to god An ear mark of a christian is the love of what we do for one another and our expression of service to one another So what does this mean? That if we have somebody in need we help them You know i was sharing not too long ago How we measure intelligence There's a standardized test that we use it's called an intelligence quotient an IQ We use that for a number of different things to measure a number of different things for people who are applying for pretty Some big jobs and and we use this intelligent quotient to gauge their intelligence But there's also another type of quotient that i want to ask you tonight Is i don't want to ask what your IQ you is i want to ask what your lq is What is your love quotient? If i were to ask you from a scale of one to ten Ten saying man i love jesus so much And one saying i don't love jesus and i was to ask you to tell me your score Everybody being super spiritual in here i'm sure would say a ten How much do you love jesus? And in your heart you're saying john i'm at a ten Because i love the lord i serve him i worship him i'm i'm here every sunday i'm here every wednesday But you know how we measure the love for the lord is how we love others The way we measure our love quotient is how we love and serve others That knocked my score from a ten plus plus plus to like a negative three And it really put things in perspective for me And i think about what we see here in the next following verses is an example of love Service and a true act of worship Look at verse three And mary took a pound of very costly oil a spike nard And anointed the feet of jesus and wiped his feet with her hair And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil But one of his disciples judas is scary at simon's son who would betray him said Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarian given to the poor? Then he said Not because that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief So what do we learn from mary's actions? One her action was very costly Judas estimated the cost of that genuine spike nard ointment to about to be about 300 denari A denaris was one day's wage and 300 denari was approximately one year wage A spike nard was probably from napaul But most likely from india and it was very costly and very oily It was a costly oil that was used in egypt by kings and princes and and as well as well as in rome And obviously here in israel But it's important to point out that a pound was equal to 12 ounces and this is the amount that mary used now When i speak about this part my wife gets a little excited Hi, honey.  Some of you guys are being shy tonight I smell the church when I come in some people have it on a lot But listen to some of the prices of perfume chanel number five $120 an ounce That's cool Listen to this one Clive Now if somebody if I pronounce these wrong just correct me after service I don't know how to say any a lot of these things, but listen to this one clive christians imperial majesty $215,000 for 16.9 ounces It's about 12,721 an ounce honey. Don't get any don't get any ideas Okay, here's a tongue twister bakarots less Larmay or larmese saccharis the thebes $1,700 for a quarter of an ounce Or about $6,800 an ounce Clive christians number one 21 $2,150 for two ounces Ralph loran notorious $3,540 for 2.2 ounces And then this one here is I called it hermes, but it's hermay hermay perfume 24 fauburn $1,500 an ounce Mary's perfume that points out in verse five was 12 was 12 ounces And it was valued at approximately $4,000 an ounce in today's standards So it would have been equivalent to one year's wage of about 48,000 dollars Her gift was very expensive But to but to her jesus it was well worth it Because she loved him People stand in line for all kinds of events For movies concerts plays Restaurants sporting events just to get a glimpse or their favorite star And all of this incurs a cost and a sacrifice Now there's nothing wrong with going to movies concerts and sporting events But once again when we become it becomes a point in our life where we worship it We're serving it In fact our old nature is so self-centered and is constantly directed to self-satisfaction But when we give to the lord and worship him It breaks our old nature's desire for self and we become more like jesus who gave himself for us Mary gave her most prized possession Her most treasured possession To jesus but our possessions may not be As worth as mary's or it might not have that cost as much as mary's and that was true for martha Martha was Didn't care about perfume, but she valued the work of service Her sacrifice to jesus her sacrifice to jesus was Perspiration rather than perfume and it was just as noble and just as worthy and just as value is mary's sacrifice So my question you tonight is what would you give jesus? What is your most prized possession For some people it may be their bank accounts, which i'm telling you that's not mine For others it's a position at work and for some it's a relationship But the question is would you give it? And would you give it your all? We will make it available. We make it available for jesus's use and mary gave Humbly her best to jesus And we see here at the end of verse three is when she did this When she when she wiped His feet with her hair and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil But one of the disciples Judas iscariot simon son who would be trade him said why wasn't this fragrant oils not sold for 300 denarii given to the poor? You know, it's interesting that we can picture in our minds mary who comes in And it says that she used her hair to wipe the feet of jesus in that culture Hair was a symbolic of a woman's of a woman's glory and she lavished jesus's feet with her glory because she was self-forgetting She was passionate And there are times when we should not shy away from such open and passionate love and worship for our jesus We should let our tears fall in and jesus said of mary and matthew 26 10. She has done a beautiful thing to me You know, we think about that time when People would wear sandals There was no tennis shoes. There were no paved highways and people would walk and their feet would get really grimy and really dirty And and the fact that she came in and and got onto her knees before a rabbi teacher The son of god She crossed all social norms and and crossed cultural boundaries and she didn't care But she gave her all to worship jesus And she comes and she kneels and she's pouring her tears out on his feet And using this spike nard and anointing his feet and using her hair to wipe this and wipe his feet And what a selfless passion and act of worship John adds at the end of verse three that the house was filled with the fragrance of oil And this tells us that mary didn't use a tiny pinch of the spike nard to anoint jesus's feet She broke the whole container. She gave him her all and we can learn from this Because because when we worship jesus, we need to give him our all not just a tiny little pinch But we need to give him everything We need to have a selfless passionate worship for our king Who went to the cross and gave us his all that we may have salvation in him What is our worship to jesus tonight? You know sitting up here in the front tonight Hearing everybody worship was a beautiful thing And i started thinking to myself Do I selflessly selfishly or selflessly worship my king? It's interesting that we see in verse five judas's response I find it interesting that the first recorded utterance of judas ever is he asks the question why This is a common response Of people who do not understand our worship and our love to jesus christ When we surrender our lives to and to our lord and savior jesus the initial response of those who are who are watching by or seen us Will ask us why Why are you giving your all to jesus? Why are you worshiping him? Why are you giving him tithing offerings? Why do you do this and why do you do that? And this is what we see judas saying here Why was this freguinola not sold for 300 denari? We have those around us that don't understand our love and worship for jesus christ And they ask why Why not sell this money give it to the poor i bet judas sounded Very impressive He sounded like he was sensitive he was he was not a bad guy and and i can imagine people saying oh look He has a concern for the poor. He's such a good man But judas was using his concern for the poor to decide to disguise his grief For judas was a thief And in verse six we see That he's this he said not that he cared for the poor But because he was a thief and had the money box and he used he used to take what was put in it Mary was a selfless giving believer believer But judas was a selfish greedy materialist To the heart that has never met god worship means the most impractical wasteful pursuit And judas is a profile of hell But we look at verses seven and eight, but jesus said let her alone. She has kept this for The the day of my burial for the poor you have with you always, but me you do not always have This reveals mary's spiritual discernment many commentators believe that because of her devotion to jesus and her worship to jesus and sitting at the feet of jesus That she had She had seen More than the rest that jesus's death was approaching His disciples had no clue But mary did why? Because she selflessly worshiped jesus and was sitting at his feet What's your devotional life looking like? How's your time spending with the lord? Only you can answer that And i've mentioned this before but a lot of times we have this mentality as we drive through a drive through at a fast food restaurant and we have that same mentality with our devotional life And it's no wonder we're in the desert It's no wonder we're in the wilderness And sometimes we have a busy schedule and we open up the bible and it says therefore my heart shall resound like a heart of moab lord bless this time. Thank you jesus Is that our worship for our king? You know pastor david was mentioning on on sunday that When we serve as an act of worship to our king There's a danger Of it becoming burdensome There's a danger for it to become Oh, i got to serve again And when our heart is in that place Spiritually we're in a dangerous place Because our worship for the lord should be giving our worship to our king should be selfless. It's never about us And we see in verse nine Now a great many of the jews knew that he was there and he They came not for jesus Not for jesus' sake only but that they may also see lazarus whom he raised from the dead But the chief priest plotted to put lazarus to death also Because on account of him many of the jews went away and believed in jesus Lazarus has become jesus' star witness And i find this amazing because as we read through the gospels we really don't find anything that That makes lazarus stand out He never seems to have said anything or Do anything worth recording in the gospels yet He ends up being one of the greatest star witnesses for jesus and why is that?  Why have you forsaken me? And i'm wondering did he get a whiff of that perfume And was he reminded of how much mary loved him I get this feeling that when jesus smelled this perfume that mary poured on him He kept him going For his love for you his love for me You know, it's interesting to point out that at any time with the blood loss that jesus suffered and all the things that jesus went through It would have been I don't want to say normal or typical, but it would have been easy for him just to pass out there on the side And not take make it to the cross Because of the blood loss Medically He should have it should have happened that way, but it was his love for you that drove him to that cross You know, I also I have these ideas and And I think about when jesus was in the garden of gosemite and he's saying lord if it's possible take this cup from me And I wonder If he gets a flash of each one of our faces at that moment And says nevertheless not my will but your will because I love them Does your life And your worship for god leave a long lasting aroma to remind jesus how much you love him This is an area i'm working on And once again i'm reminded that this passage shares with us that Mary didn't use a tiny pinch of the spiked nerd oil that she broke the whole flask and gave it her all And we could learn from this type of worship That when we worship jesus we need to give him our all And when we give our all To jesus as an act of worship the place that we're in will be filled with the fragrance of the aroma of the oil The sweet smelling perfume the aroma of the fragrance of jesus that fills our life Our hearts And people see this What's your fragrance tonight? Is it a pleasing aroma to the lord? Or is it a stench? What's your worship for the lord like i'm telling you guys this is an area i'm working on John 12 3 says and the house was filled with the fragrance of oil When we worship Serve and give god our best to god Our fragrance will fill the room Do we want our lives to be a fragrance for our king? if so We need to get down on our knees at jesus's feet And anoint him and given him everything we have