Hello, welcome everyone. Thank you for attending our presentation today. My name is Pramod Bhandevaad. I'm from Tata Communications. I work with the Cloud Enablement and Network Services Group. I have with me Pratik Goyal from Tata Communications, Nishi Ahuja from Intel, and Jason Wenner from Mirantis. So today, we are going to talk about an exciting new solution which we are building with the help of Intel and Mirantis, which will help assure workload availability with OpenStack Clouds. So this is what we are going to talk about today. So the first thing we'll see is what are the challenges the enterprises are facing right now in bringing their workloads onto OpenStack and to address those challenges, what needs to be monitored, and what can fail, what are the gaps right now in the ecosystem which to address those failures, and then what are the options available. And then we'll dig into how we went about solving this problem, what were our design goals, our architecture, and then what algorithms we build, and then we'll see what are the components involved. Then we'll talk about what are the development options, future development plan we have, and then we'll also take you through a demo. So this is a very simple ask from an enterprise customer which is keep my VM running. Today, we heard from Dana about two modes, mode one and mode two, which is the legacy applications, whereas in the other category here is the cloud native applications. So when enterprises want to move their legacy applications onto cloud, they expect continuous operation and fast and automated recovery. So OpenStack does provide scale and redundancy at the infrastructure layer to provide HA for applications built for horizontally scaling cloud applications. So it is designed for applications which are built for failure, which are designed for failure. This, it seems that they have voluntarily excluded some features just not to impact their ability to scale. So that's the primary reason we see that. And so to talk about the challenges involved, I would like to invite Jason, winner from Merantis. He's a chief architect at Merantis. We'll talk about what are the challenges involved from the enterprise standpoint in bringing their workloads onto OpenStack Clouds. Susan? Been working with OpenStack since roughly 2010 in the bear time frame. And the number one ask has always been, I don't want to be a sysadmin. I've deployed my tool, keep it running. And this really defines the bulk of the workloads that we experience today is that somebody is expecting the developer or the workload owners expecting someone else to take care of the care and feeding of that and assuming that the hardware is going to be maintained to high levels of perfection. In the cloud world, that doesn't work. So what do we have to do? We have two common patterns. We have horizontally scaled, resilient applications, the modern cloud architecture, where hopefully the team has built a complete infrastructure cloud deployment automation framework. And maybe 1% of the cloud applications have that, where any failure is automatically handled by the operational tooling. The bulk of them have some manual level of installation. And anything that reduces the operational load of keeping that workload up, whether it be on the dev side or in the production side, is a serious enabler of the user. And then we have the 99% case for the workloads, which are the legacy applications that are not horizontally scaled or resilient. And they depend on the infrastructure to maintain their availability. And OpenStack has really let these users down. Ultimately, what this team has done has built a framework for enabling intelligent operation, automatic operation for workloads to deal with issues on the hypervisor so that the users and the operations teams don't have to. How many of you here are operators that are dealing with my VM failed help on a regular basis? So this story is for you. So I think it's particularly clear that there are still concerns for enterprises to move their workloads as ease onto a cloud platform. So to provide the kind of availability that the enterprises have come to expect, we need extensive monitoring. And to determine what needs to be monitored, we first need to understand what can fail. So this is, so it can be broadly classified into three categories, the failure categories. The first one is infrastructure failure. Infrastructure failure means OpenStack services could fail, as well as the hardware running on the OpenStack. The hardware running the OpenStack can fail. So by hardware, we mean the physical compute nodes, the controllers, the network switches, routers, storage nodes, and all the other components associated with OpenStack. So this is one category of failure. Then we have the guest VM failure, where the operating system which the guests are running can fail, or the virtual networking, or their storage might fail. And then there's the application failure. So our focus is primarily on the infrastructure failure here. How do we intelligently handle infrastructure failure? So to reiterate, so that's the challenge, being prepared to handle both component and total failure. So for any kind of application, the objective is to be prepared to rapidly recover from any kind of service disruption or disaster. So the solution here is to build auto remediation using predictive algorithms. So auto remediation involves just much more than just clearing an alert. So it involves a role engine, a workflow engine, which analyze the event, and then they notify using an ITSM notification mechanism so that the operators get to know about the problem. And then there's a workflow engine which will tell us, which will tell the framework, how to go about resolving this error. So that being the challenge, we will look at the typical points of failures in our deployment. So this is a typical open stack deployment in an enterprise world. So we have the controllers failing, we have the monitoring server itself failing, and then the compute nodes could fail, and then the storage network, the management network where the operating operations team will log into the systems to manage that could fail. And lastly, the open stack control network followed by the VM tenant network. So at the control plane, I think open stack pretty much handles the high availability pretty well through use of pacemaker and Corosync. But all the other layers, there are still gaps on how well do you monitor these systems and how do you take remedial actions. So these are the gaps. So now having looked at what can fail, so these are the gaps we have identified in order to assure the workload availability. So the first gap is the compute node failure. So it's pretty well known, right? So what happens when compute node crashes? We don't have a mechanism where all the VMs are automatically evacuated. So there are solutions out there like pacemaker remote which have been integrated, but it's still pretty complicated as far as we have observed. And then there's predictive component health degradation. So how do you predict whether a compute node will go down or not? So what are the factors involved in predicting total failure? So there could be a correctable errors as well as uncorrectable errors. How do you determine whether any event which has happened with the compute node will eventually lead to a compute node crash? So that's where, so there are no known solutions out there to gather this intelligence from the platform. Then there is thermal awareness. So thermal awareness is where we have, we need tools which will measure the exhaust temperature, which way we need tools which will do a thermal stress evaluation. And how do we balance the nodes so that they are equally distributed and the thermal footprint is well below the margins? So even an overshooting might, overshoot of a thermal temperature will impact your CPU course, will impact the dims and other components involved. So we need to handle this. Then there's another gap where we don't consider the QoS or performance degradation. So we can, there are a lot of actions to be taken when there is a performance degradation observed on the compute node. And then the largest gap here is the framework for auto remediation. So there are monitoring servers out there, monitoring services which have been deployed. What do we do with those events? Right now it's just with a flag or notification, they send emails, they open a ticket, that's all, that's where the action ends. So there's, so what we have done is we have built a framework for auto remediation where we pick those events, we analyze those events and then we take certain correctable actions. So these are the current monitoring options that, so we talked about the two aspects of the solution. One is the event gathering, the other is how do you use those events to auto remediate a problem. So these are, we've listed some of these tools out there in the market which can be used as a monitoring framework. So they have their own pros and cons, we're not going to dig deep here, this is pretty well known. So now based on the gaps and based on what's out there, we have designed these goals for our framework to provide continuous workload availability. So the goal number one is to take reactive measures. So this is when a problem has already happened, you know, the compute node has crashed, so what do you do? So the simplest action is to evacuate all the VMs to a healthier node. Then the important goal is to be proactive by predicting failures. So there could be multiple failures with CPU memory, there's thermal, there's a requirement out there where how do you put a host into maintenance mode? So you need a host to be put into maintenance mode and all the VMs should automatically be live migrated onto a new node so that the original host can be bought down. Then goal number three is to be flexible. It should work with any kind of a monitoring framework out there, be extensible. So how do you, the framework should be extensible enough where you can add new samplers, new collectors, new rules engine where you can specify what kind of metric needs to, needs what action and then be scalable. So it should be a pretty obvious requirement. So this is how our architecture looks like. Pretty, so one of our main mantras was to keep it simple. So we used Xabix, Xabix, we found it to be pretty powerful monitoring framework. So we've used Xabix to collect all the metrics here. So what's new here is on the right hand side, on the compute side, you see different data collection tools. We use the smart month tool to get intelligence from disks like disk errors and disk temperature. We have, we use the Intel machine check architecture here. So Intel machine check architecture has enhanced MCA logging which gives early indication of hardware failures. So it says a dim, there's a memory failure, then we get the actual dim address and then the action could be to deactivate a dim or deactivate a CPU core, right? Then we use the Intel node manager to get thermal intelligence here and we have custom tools or SNMP data to collect performance so that we can do a QoS performance-based migration and then we could keep adding any kind of intelligence we want to gather. So all these data is routed through Xabix, they go through some transformation flow where from Xabix monitoring server and then let's put onto the open stack notification bus where we have written this instance as a agent. Instance such a agent picks up these messages and it analyzes what kind of an event it is and then it puts it into a DB. So and then there are two agents, the monitoring agent and action agent which are looking, which are monitoring this DB for any events, let's say a dim failure occurred. So the action agent refers this event then goes through a policy engine. The policy engine will tell the framework what kind of an action it has to take. So we'll see how the policy engine looks like and the monitoring agent will actually monitor so suppose the action was to do a live migration of a specific VM, the monitoring agent will check whether this action was successful and then it has a certain workflow on what needs to be done. So digging deeper, so we see this is how the flow happens. So we have from the compute node, we collect information from various tools we mentioned earlier and then from the monitoring agent it goes to a data receiver in Xabix monitoring server and then we have defined new templates and triggers inside of Xabix to let us know what needs to be done on certain events and then we have written certain scripts which actually do some bit of caching to avoid having to dump all the notifications on the bus. And then instance HA agent picks up these messages, puts on to the node setters DB, then the action agent reads this node setters, it goes through policy engine, rules engine and then the workflow engine and calls certain NOVA APIs for live migration, evacuation, scale up, scale down and then there's a monitoring agent which is monitoring for the success or failure of the event. So yeah, so these are the changes we have implemented as part of the solution. We have added multiple samplers, we have used the Intel node manager, Intel machine check architecture, we've added new collectors, we've built these health agents which ideally we would want to be part of NOVA so that NOVA knows the exact health of the compute node. We've built new NOVA scheduler filters which will be used, which will refer to the DB we mentioned so that it can take appropriate action and then we have added new screens to horizon which will show the actual node health. So this is how a sample policy file will look like. So you can see that exhaust temperature or inlet temperature if there's an anomaly out there. So what is the action? Action is to do live migration and what is the notification mechanism? Notification mechanism is to raise a ticket through your ticketing system. Same as, similarly we have other errors mentioned here. So one more thing you can note about is the management network failure. So sometimes the open stack control network or the management network can fail. So we don't want to be taking, we don't want to evacuate VMs in that case. So you can mention what kind of action you have to take in those scenarios. Similarly for storage network, you can do a storage backend migration from one storage platform to another. So these are the workload migration algorithms which we have built and I would like to invite Nishi on stage to take you through what we have done, what are the different algorithms we implemented. So what is Intel doing with Tata? We are working with Tata to expose the telemetry which is the platform features which includes your sensor information from the platform to take any actions around thermal stress or failure of the components or thermal conditions or system going down. If you look at the other monitoring tools or orchestration and automation tools, not many are today using this platform features. So that is one of the reasons that you can't detect the thermal issues, you can't detect the reliability or failure issues. This helps the data center operator with visibility into the platform features, with visibility into the component level issues, thermal issues or reliability issues. It helps in reducing your OpEx, reducing your total cost of ownership and having your environment available all the time, reliably. So some of the algorithms we are working with Tata on some of them are very simple algorithms but are very powerful. So let's say some of the thermal event based algorithm which is just based on an outlet temperature. Now you'll ask what is an outlet temperature? Outlet temperature is a sensor which is not physical sensor on the board but it's an average temperature across the server. It's a very important sensor value because the higher, like there are some components behind the server which have lower temperature thresholds as well as some of the cable wires behind the server have lower temperature thresholds. We have had customers who are moving to, there's a trend in the industry to move to higher temperatures and that results into higher outlet temperature or higher utilization on the server also results into higher outlet temperature. So if that exceeds the thermal threshold we have seen issues like systems shutting down. So although it's a very simple scenario but if you had a way of monitoring the outlet temperatures and taking an action an action could be if it exceeds certain threshold migrate the work to another so that you can relieve the stress on that system. So that's a simple scenario. Another one is a airflow based sensor and taking action on that. Air flow is a pretty important feature which was not available in the prior generation platforms. Today with Haswell onwards we have this new feature which tells you the amount of air that is required by the system. That's important because if you're not getting the right amount of air to the systems the components can either fail or it can result into a long-term reliability issues. So not just using airflow sensors but the inlet and outlet sensors we have built certain algorithms which can either define the component failures whether the fan is failing or the heat sink is fouling and then you can take actions based on that. Then we have other algorithms like thermal stress prediction. This is purely based on prediction not reactive it is more determined if the system is thermally stressed. So we are building some algorithms based on machine learning which is taking not only the power inlet temperatures, outlet and airflow and building that total predictive capability. So you're predicting thermal stress before even it happens and taking actions. And then as Pramod stated we are also exposing a lot of errors from the platforms which can help us determine CPU failure predictions, memory and the disk. There are others like the performance degradation and compute host issues. We are still working on those kind of algorithms but this is just a sample of the algorithms we are working with Tata on. This takes us to the slide on what are we planning to do? This is more from Tata's side what they are planning to do and we will be collaborating with them on some of these issues. So they want to enhance the user interface work by importing templates into the monitoring framework and build more policies and workflows. They want to integrate their instance HHA agents into the NOVA. They want to integrate the workflow engine into the OpenStack and then they want to enhance their algorithms or today they are basically using random VMs but in this case they want to use more impact VMs to migrate their work to. And the tagging VMs is also similar approach where they want to attack particular VM where they want to migrate their work to. As we saw they have added quite a bit of sampler which includes node manager and other places they can pull the data from. They will be including more samplers in that. They are going to also work on storage monitoring and back end migrations and also work with merenties on fuel plugin development. With this I'll want to bring Pratik on the stage so that he can demonstrate that simple scenario of outlet temperature based migration. Hi, I'll be demonstrating how our framework deals with three different scenarios. The first scenario will be the thermal overshoot. The second would be where you want to put the host into the maintenance mode. Third and the last one would be when the compute host crashes and you want to do an evacuation of the... So this is a schematic diagram of the scenario that we are talking about. So we have an OpenStack killer deployment with merenties 7.0 and wherein we have one controller which is node 46 and then we have two computes, node 48 and node 49. And there are a certain number of VMs running on node 48 compute. Along with these nodes, we have a Zabx monitoring server which is going to collect the data from these nodes. With our framework page into this deployment, Zabx monitoring server starts collecting the platform specific data as well. And one of the entity in that platform data is exhaust temperature in this scenario. And say there is exhaust temperature overshoot on a node 48 compute. And whenever Zabx monitoring server picks up this data from node 48, it checks it whether it is within the threshold limit that we have set or not. If it crosses the threshold limit, it alerts our framework saying that this node has overshoot the exhaust temperature. And our framework then comes into play and it's configured to live migrate a VM from the node 48 to node 49. So basically an unhealthy node to an unhealthy node. So let's look at the video of it now. So this is the fuel environment that we have. Sorry? The video is not up. Can the video come up on the screen? We have a video player here playing up here, but. Does it extend it or something? Maybe it needs to be. Okay, if you do it then we will process. Slow. So this is, we are on the controller right now. And this is the service list that we have. So you can see that there are services here for node 48 and node 49. So node 48 and node 49 compute services are up and enabled and we have four VMs, stress zero, one, two and three, which are active on host node 48. All of them are on node 48 right now. And let's go to horizon and look at the instances. So these are the four instances that we have. Again, we are showing it up. And the thing is here, we have a lot of four VMs. We have two with a flavor of tiny flavor and two of them are boot from volume so that we cover up the different flavors as well. So this is the node health custom page that we guys have done it. This shows you the health of the node. It's an overall health of the node. And we see that there are a list of instances that are there. So it lists as there are four instances in it. The state is okay. There's a faulting event right now. There's nothing. Everything's all okay. And let's look at node 48. So if you want to look at each node's platform, specific events, you have to click on it and then you go and see it. So there's an exhaust temperature, inlet temperature, disk temperature and correctable memory error. The second column shows you the current value that the Zavix monitoring server is getting for these events from node 48. And then the next column shows you the threshold values that we have set. Any there means that we have not set the thresholds really. And since everything is working under the threshold limit, the status is okay. So we'll go and look at the Zavix screen for a moment. And this is the node 48 definition that you can see in the row. There are triggers to it which have been set and the template that we have is node health template. So this is the trigger that we were talking about. This is an exhaust temperature overshoot trigger, marked in blue, and the threshold value is greater than 40. And whenever the value that Zavix reads from the server, it crosses this threshold, we have actions defined for it. So whenever it crosses, the trigger value becomes a problem. And then we run a command to intimate our framework above the same. Similarly, we have another action defined. Whenever the exhaust temperature value comes down the threshold value, we set the trigger value to okay. And again, we intimate our framework for the same. So let's go and simulate our exhaust temperature overshoot. The simplest way to do it is just change the threshold value under the current operating value. So we are gonna set it to value 20, change the threshold. And then we're gonna go and look at the node health page again. So right now it says all okay, because Zavix has to read that value from this server. And now we see that how did we change the threshold value by the way, first of all? So that's done by calling the Zavix API. So our horizon page has called this Zavix API to change the threshold and it received a positive response from Zavix. And similarly, you see the last line which says the received update from Zavix for node 48 on even exhaust temperature. So that means Zavix has seen that the new value that he has received crosses the threshold and it has updated our framework for the same. And let's look at the node health page. If it's updated or not, it says yes. And here you see that the state has become warning. The faulting event is exhaust temperature. Corrective action we are doing is live migration and the action status is started. So right now it has not picked up any VM. It is just that our framework knows about it. So this is where we see that, you know, the Nova scheduler filter also comes in. So once he picks up the VM that he wants to move, he checks out which node is healthy. So in this case, he sees node 49 is healthy and he tries to move it. And the last line says you started the live migration of VM test underscore three with a VM ID from most node 48. So this is a split screen that we are showing up. On the right hand side, you can see that the event has been started and you can see a VM ID also over here. So he has selected a VM ID and he's migrating it. Let's wait for a few seconds. Yep. So now he says the action status has changed. It is migrating the VM now. Yep, so he says that the VM has been migrated. So live migration has completed. And we can see node 48 has only three instances now. And we'll just show you the triggers that the trigger value for this exhaust temperature we showed has changed to 20. Because we call the Xabix API to change it. And if you look at the list of instances that we have, we see that test underscore three, VM has moved to node 49 and rest of them are on node 48. We go back to node health. We see one of the instances have gone to node 49 and three are on node 48. So having done this, node 48 now is classified as an unhealthy node for our framework. And node 49, it still remains as an healthy node. So if we try to create a new VM, it should go to node 49 and not 48 because we have even done an over filter scheduler wherein he goes and he checks whether it consults our framework to find out whether this host is healthy or not. So that's where we are creating a VM now. And if you go to admin instances, we would see that test four is on node 49 now. And if you go to node health, we see that there are three instances for node 48 to for node 49. And the same screen again, the logs of the Nova scheduler where we see that node 48 is not healthy and hence filtering it out from the list. But node 49 is healthy, so he's continuing to pick it up. So this is the second scenario that we have, which is the maintenance mode. So if an instance admin wants to, so yeah, so before that, the system setup remains the same, the controls and the compute and the Xabix monitoring server. Now since admin comes and he wants to put the node 48 into the maintenance mode. So to complete this process of node 48 to be into maintenance mode, we need Xabix server to also understand this activity because Xabix monitoring server is continued to connecting the monitoring data from all the nodes. So if you take node 48 into the maintenance mode, the Xabix server, it should stop collecting that data so that it does not generate any false alerts for this during the maintenance period. So that's where node 48 informs Xabix about the maintenance mode, then Xabix then intimates our framework about the same thing, and our framework understands that if the host is going to maintenance mode, we have to live migrate all the VMs from node 48 to another healthy node. So let's look at the third scenario that we have, that's an evacuation wherein the node has to crash. So this is one of the most common scenarios that we all are aware of. So say for some reason, node 48 compute crashes and there are certain number of VMs running on it. This monitoring server Xabix is collecting the data from node 48 at a regular intervals of time. Now when the node 48 is gonna crash, Xabix monitoring server is gonna see if he can communicate with node 48 on one of the links. If that link fails, he tries to the multiple other links that he can talk to. If all the reachability to node 48 from a monitoring server fails, that's when Xabix server declares that the node 48 is unreachable. And once he declares that it's unreachable, he updates our framework for the same, and our framework knows when a node is unreachable, I have to evacuate all the VMs from that host. It's a control functionality. All the information is there on the controller. Sorry. Now we don't have to reach the VMs on the compute in order to evacuate. It's a restart. It's a restart on the other destination host. No, it's not my guess, it's evacuation. Yeah. So yes, that's all we had. We are open for Q&A. We have a minute on. Yeah. So that's based on the scheduler changes we have made. So it goes and checks our DB on what are the healthy nodes available, and then the filter kicks in. Sorry, yeah. I'll just hand out the mic. Oh, it's out here. So in order to move machines to another host, or multiple hosts, in case of multiple VMs, you'll have to decide what is the right host that will take the VM in. For that, usually you have to implement a bin packing problem, like first-wish descending or some other mechanism, right? So which is the algorithm that you used to move the VMs into the existing host? So we've left that to the NOMA scheduler.  So what we have done is we've added filters to the NOMA scheduler, which will, as part of the selection process, read our node health DB, which we saw that node status DB, and pick up a healthy node and then move the VMs there. Okay, that's fine, yeah, because the NOMA scheduler's not very smart, actually, so you have to have some sort of a solution. So yeah, that's why we have linked it to our... Thank you. So can I ask a, sorry. Right here. There you go. Oh, yeah. Two questions. One, where do I find the code for the stuff you guys have done? So we share the presentation. We have a link out there. Okay. So we are going to post all the code, documentation, the API, access, everything onto that link. Fantastic. Second question, can you give some characterization of the latencies, like when a node fails? Let's say you have 100 node cluster, right? So how quickly do you detect a node failure? So currently, it all depends on how the polling intervals you have set, how frequently you want to poll for the errors. So ideally, we've kept it at three to five seconds for some events, and it goes to 30 seconds for the other events. I think it's not, we cannot give you a definitive answer on what should be the polling interval. It all depends on the workload and the events being generated. So I think ideally, it's three to five seconds for... But have you tried getting it down to a millisecond range, does it work? No, no, we have not. I think as part of the testing process, probably we'll do it. That's not gonna work. But I don't think we'll get there. That's not gonna happen. You're not gonna be polling at milliseconds. What happens if your monitoring server can't see a compute node but Nova can? Okay, so that's one of the links which has access. So the way we have deployed here is, the Xabix is part of the controller network. So whatever Nova sees as part of controller, Xabix will see, unless you know, the interfaces on the Xabix server goes down. But then, so what it does is on the evacuation, then the node evacuation, if the compute node is able to reach the other services, we don't evacuate. We don't evacuate in that case. So it's kind of a console, the distributed HA guys who have implemented. So we have the knowledge of node reachability spread across through that. Thank you for the presentation. And I'm working kind of a similar thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's called Masakari. It's on the G-Tab, but... Have you read about it? Yeah. I saw your... Yeah, we're working on the same kind of aspects. But I want to, one question, but when you evacuate the VMs, you have to fence the original compute node, right? To make sure it went down. Otherwise, yeah. We do fencing, yes. We do fencing. Yeah, we do fencing. Okay. So through IPMI tool, we just do a shutdown of the computer. Oh, you do it through the IPMI? Yeah. Okay. So do you have any monitoring on the KVM level? That's part of the future development plan and we want to add those checks because we think we've seen problems there and there's information out there where we think we can take corrective actions on. So that's going to happen soon. Okay, thank you. So I'll stick to the code in detail. Yeah, sure. I think we'll... Hi, I'm Sudhanda from Intel. I just wanted you guys to know that we've started kind of a project called WATER. And it's doing a lot of the same things. And so I think it would be great if you guys actually came and participated because it sounds like we have plenty of efforts and we're working with Nishi too. And so her algorithms are already in the WATER repos. And so we kind of... I just wanted you to be aware of this. We are aware. We are from Intel. So we are working with her. So she's already mentioned to us about WATER. Perfect. So we will see how we can integrate with that. How many of these projects have you got going on in detail? This is like a third I know of. Could I just invite all you guys to... There's a session that Adam Spears and Doa Deja from also from Intel are running. It's like pets and hypervisors state of the nation. So yeah, again, same thing you said. Could we all get together and agree on like... On one of the... Exactly. Let's consolidate if it's... When we're looking to decide what metering or metrics you need for your algorithm, we're not looking at, you know, coming up. We have some kind of algorithm that are part of the package, but it's really about creating a very flexible framework. And so I'm not trying to tell you how that you need to do things differently. I just want to take the best of what you have and make sure that we can have one single framework and everybody can get everything what they need out of it. Sure. Yeah, I think we're leaning towards like a mistral based solution at the moment, but that can be flexible. No, no. And OpenStackHA is also an IRC channel, but it'd be great if everyone could... Yep, I'm doing okay. But it doesn't make sense. It's not effective. Yeah. Could you... Are you one of the authors of this? No, no, I'm the pacemaker guy. Let me just take a photo. And, you know, we have an IRC channel and I can also announce where we're meeting their OpenStack dashboard. Yeah. We said it can set as events every time. Yes, I can do that. Yeah. So everybody can... I thought we've done that already. Oh, really? Yeah. We'll do it again. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, folks. You can visit us at D-15 if you want to discuss further on this. I have one more question. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So somebody mentioned that you guys have predictive algorithms for, you know, basically estimating when the workload is going to be more or when the temperature is going to be higher. Right? You mentioned that. So what techniques are you using for that? I'm curious. Are you using statistical learning? You know, were it moving average or something like neural networks? SVM algorithms and then K-Mean, those kind of algorithms. But yes, some of them are Intel IP, but some of them we are exposing out to the community. So yes, we can share that. If you want, we can work together and... Did that answer your question? Yeah. I don't know if you could send me an email, and then I can... Yeah, it is. Thank you. Thanks.


A Guide to North American Wildflowers is an example of a Sean Sheehy artist book. We have number two out of thirty. Sean Sheehy, who is a contemporary artist, bookmaker and paper engineer, handmade paper, everything hand cut and hand constructed. We're very lucky to have an example of one of Sean's original books. The other thing that I really like about this field guide is that he's taken a historical content base in terms of field guides to flowers that we're all used to, but he is also inserted an LGBTQ message into it, and when you read the descriptions of the flowers at the back, you sort of see that there's a political human touch that you wouldn't of course see in a historical field guide to wildflowers, so it's both beautiful to look at. The flowers are very striking as they pop out, but there's a lot of meaning inside of the book as well.


Okay, so chapter three, right? Chapter three, Philippines, let's read a few verses. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. Circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have countered laws for Christ. Yes, yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the laws of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. And be found in him not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. So he started by saying, my brethren rejoice in the Lord. So if you see this, he says this a few times. I think we see in chapter one also, chapter one also he talks about how he will rejoice. Chapter one was 18, says only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and in this I rejoice and will rejoice. And he talks about in chapter two just now we read, he's saying, for the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me. So he's talking about how he's being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of their faith. And he's saying, I'm glad and rejoice with you all. For this reason, you also be glad and you rejoice. So here in chapter three also he's talking about rejoicing. It's wonderful that we can learn something from Paul, from his whole outlook towards life, outlook towards ministry. And he's saying rejoice in the Lord. And rejoice in the Lord.  So which means that rejoicing in the Lord or joy, that for us to have the joy, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which we read in Galatians 522, it doesn't have to depend on our circumstance, our physical circumstance. It doesn't have to have, it need not be, I have these things and therefore I will rejoice or everything is going fine, therefore I will rejoice. It doesn't have to be that way at all. It's very clear that Paul, so many times he writes in this, what is called as the prison episode, he writes it and he says, you rejoice, rejoice in the Lord. I rejoice. And so he says, rejoice in the Lord. And again, we know that he will say that in chapter four also, rejoice in the Lord. And again, I will say rejoice. So definitely it's the work of the Spirit in one's life, which causes a person to rejoice and also our perspective of a higher reality, our grasp of the higher reality, that is our grasp of the spiritual reality, knowing that. Here are certain things that are eternal and here are certain things that are temporal. Okay, now if my grasp, if my grip on the things that are spiritual or eternal things, if I'm going to have that before me at all times, then I will be able to rejoice. But if it's going to be on the temporal and my focus is there on the things that are, you know, always on the things that are carnal, then I will not be able to rejoice. So saying rejoice in the Lord verse one, for me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Okay, so I'm writing the same things over and over again, and he's going to talk about what is it that he's writing? What is it that he's repeating? Right? So, you know, as a teacher, as an apostle, you know, as one who's laying down doctrine, you know, one of the things of teaching is repetition, right? Like you, a teacher, I'm sure the way we learned our alphabets and the way we learned some of these things is through repeating, you know, multiplication tables in maths, you know, we repeated over and over again. And with the intention of learning, understanding, we, you know, memorizing so that it will remain with us, we repeated it over and over again. So as a teacher, he is repeating certain things and Paul says, you know, for me, it is not tedious, it's not tiresome. In fact, for you, it is safe. Sorry, for the simple reason that you will understand it, you will get to, these things will remain with you.  Literally, it means it secures, you feel you are secure, you will be certain when these truths are repeated over and over again. Okay, so he's writing the same things, he's not afraid of writing the same things, he's not afraid of repeating the same things, because, you know, repetition means, okay, here are some things to be reiterated, right? These are important things. So I'm going to, you know, say it once more. So in case you didn't, you don't, you didn't understand it earlier, or in case you missed it the earlier time, now you have another chance, another opportunity to understand it, and also to receive it, right? So he's saying, yeah, it is good, it is for you, it is safe, for you, it is something that is, that will make you secure and certain, so I'm repeating it, okay? So what does he say? What are the some things that he's repeating? Verse two, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. So he's, the word beware means be aware, and it also means be alert, right, discern, be careful, okay? So it means observe, discover, understand.  So he's saying beware of these things. So he's listing down beware of, you know, certain things that he, that we need to be aware of, be careful of, right, discern. So he's saying, what are those things? He's saying beware of dogs. Obviously, he's not referring to the animals, but he's referring to, he's using a word which the Jews used to refer, used to use, you know, the Jews still used at those times to refer to people who were non-Jews, and they used it in a very derogatory term, right? You remember, the Syrophoenician woman who went to ask the Lord, Lord, you know, heal, you know, I'm healing, sorry, she went there on behalf of her daughter, and the Lord says, you know, it is not good to take what the children's bread and give it to the dogs.  But the word term dogs was used very disrespectfully by the Jews against the non-Jews, because they looked at themselves as someone far superior, because they had the law which was given to them by God, and God was interacting with them, and through them would come the Messiah, and etc. So, all the non-Jews or the Gentiles were, you know, sometimes referred to disrespectfully as dogs. Now, Paul is using that same word, and he's saying, you beware of dogs. So, what is he referring to? And is he referring to Gentiles? He's actually writing to the Gentile church, right, the non-Jewish church. So, who is he referring to? So, he's referring to, you know, when we read the rest of the words, and the next words we understand. So, he's saying, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation, you know. So, he's referring to people who were teaching, referring to people like, he was referring to the Jewish teachers or Judaizers who were traveling, visiting those who had put their faith in Christ, Gentile churches, and they were teaching them that they needed to be circumcised. Now, something that we see in Galatians also, false brethren whom Paul refers them to as, you know, they were going around teaching, meeting with non-Jewish people who had put their faith in Jesus and saying, you need to be circumcised in order to be born again. You need to keep the law of Moses in order to be saved, right? So, he's saying, beware of those evil workers, beware of the mutilation, mutilation, mutilate means to cut away something. You know, he's, you know, referring to the circumcision which they were teaching, you know, which they were saying, you need to be circumcised. So, beware of the mutilation. And then verse 3, we are the circumcision. So, he's referring to certain, you know, what, even in the Old Testament in Jeremiah, where Jeremiah, I think it's, yeah, let's look at Jeremiah 4 and verse 4. Okay, Jeremiah 4 verse 4 says, circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the four skins of your hearts, ye men of Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire and so on. So, what is, you know, here circumcision is something to do with the heart, which we see in the book of Romans also. Like, let me just get read that verse. Romans 5, I think, yeah. Sorry, Romans 2 and verse 25. Okay, Romans chapter 2 and verse 25. So, for circumcision is indeed profitable. Okay, now just skip a few verses here. Verse 28, okay. Romans chapter 2 and verse 28. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. So, here he's saying, you know, it's something to do with the heart, something to do with what the internal change. So, that is, you know, circumcision is that.   You know, we've had a transformation because of our faith in the Lord Jesus. So, we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. Right. Now, that's the conversation that the Lord Jesus had with the woman at the well. John chapter 4, 23, 24, that God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And so, he says here, Paul is saying, you know, we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. We've had a change of heart. You know, our spirits are born again. Now, when we worship God, our spirit worships, you know, we worship from our spirit. We worship as led by the Holy Spirit. So, we are the ones, we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Okay. So, rejoice in Christ Jesus. Again, he says, you know, rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in Christ Jesus. Have no confidence in the flesh, meaning that all these outward forms, excuse me, all these outward forms, all these, you know, the circumcision and keeping of certain time and day and traditions, don't put your confidence in that. Now, that is, you know, that is not going to alter anything or be beneficial to you in the spirit. Right. So, have, do not put your confidence or your trust or rely in those things. Okay. With your trust and confidence and reliance, not be on the things of the flesh. Put no confidence in the flesh. Okay. So, saying, you know, if anyone, you know, that's what we see, right, verse four, though I also may have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. So, he's talking about, you know, all the outward forms and all the outward rituals and everything that he did or he held on to as a Pharisee before coming to Jesus. Right. So, he's saying, you know, have no confidence in the flesh. So, if anyone were to have confidence in the flesh, you know, it would be me because of all the things that I very diligently kept and the things that I did. Okay. All the traditions and everything. So, he goes on to explain. Okay. What is it? Circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. So, he's referring to his lineage. You know, I was from this tribe, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law of Pharisee. So, we know that he was training under Gamaliel as a Pharisee, to be a Pharisee. So, he was really the strictest right. He was being trained to be a Pharisee. And he was a Pharisee under Gamaliel training. So, verse six, concerning Zeal, you know, his Zeal for his teachings and Zeal for, you know, when it came to being a Pharisee, well, he was very zealous. He thought that these believers, these people who are putting their faith in Jesus, were against, were actually blaspheming the law.  And so, concerning Zeal, his enthusiasm for his religion, he was very zealous. He persecuted the church. Right. He went ahead and he arrested people, threw them into prison, got letters of permission from the, you know, from the Pharisees and from the High Priest and Sanhedrin and he went around persecuting. Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. According to the law, he did everything. You know, he tried not to miss anything. So, he's saying with confidence that concerning the law, he was blameless. Well, this is what the law prescribed. Paul would do it. It said, don't do this. He will not do it. So, concerning the law, he was righteous. He did everything. Every formula, every tradition, he would do that. So, according to the law, he was blameless. Then was seven.  What things were gained to me says, these I count as loss, loss for the sake of Christ. So, whatever things were gained to me, whatever things were, you know, advantages to me at that point as a Pharisee, advantage, you know, maybe influence, maybe the kind of authority, the kind of position that he had, the pride that he had in as one who kept the law, whatever things were gained to me, these I count as loss or damage or something that is a waste. These I counted loss for Christ. Right. So, here he's saying, you know, yet, yeah, I count all things in verse eight. Indeed, I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Okay, so here he uses another word to say that I count, sorry, I'm sorry, he uses the same word loss. And he says, for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. So, all these things are compared to, you know, when I compare them, I find that these are, you know, these are not worthy, worthy even to be compared with the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, you know, knowledge of Christ far superseded all that, far superseded all that it is, it can't even be compared, it was excellence of the knowledge of Christ. Right. So, saying, you know, this is how I was, and that is how I've come to be. And the knowledge of Christ, the personal experience, the salvation that he experienced in Christ, there's nothing compared to that. All the other things are literally nothing. And the word used there, you know, I count them as loss. And he says, I suffered the laws of all things and count them as rubbish. Okay. And the word that he uses there, again, is, it means it is excreta, you know, a dung, you know, excreta, which is the waste of animals, like the dung of animals, the excretement of animals, you know, he uses very strong word, you know, he says, that is what it is compared to the knowledge of Christ. So you see, you know, two different things. And this is Paul, who had, you know, undergone a lot of training and zealous for the things of, you know, the law and everything. And he's saying, you know, this is what it is, it is, it is actually rubbish. And it is filth. It is worthless. It is, it is, it is like an animal excretion. It's like done. For the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. So this is our knowledge of Christ is it is, it is wonderful. It's excellence, right? Excellency, which is something that is something that stands out, something that is superior, something that is wonderful. Okay. So it is much, much, much superior, wonderful and beautiful and quality, superior, excellent. It, you know, there's no comparison. Right. So he's saying, I call account this as rubbish for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. So he sees a clear difference, you know, the transformation and the, and the knowledge of Christ. And, you know, he just sees that as something that is something worthy of excellence. Right. So, so verse nine says, and sorry, verse eight also says, for the, for the cause of Christ, or for the, because of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, I have suffered the laws of all these things. Whatever, whatever he might have gained, whatever reputation he might have gained as someone, whatever standing he had in society, whatever influence that he had as a Pharisee. I've suffered the laws of all these things. And in fact, he was being persecuted and he was persecuted for the faith. He was being hunted down, put in prison for the sake of Christ. And, and he was writing from prison. So he was, you know, he was writing from experience. So he says, I have suffered the laws of all things for the sake of, for the sake of the knowledge of Christ. And, and count them as rubbish, count them as even done that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that, okay, you say talking about, you know, that we found in him, with that righteousness, which comes from faith. So, well, saying, you know, there is this righteousness, which, which is from the law in the sense, okay, I've done everything right, all the works that I've done. And therefore, you know, I can count myself as according to the law, well, I am righteous. Okay, and maybe when you check can see, you can see that, okay, that I have some sense of, you know, righteousness because of the law, but that's nothing. So, you know, and be found in Christ, you know, this is what I want that I may gain Christ and be found in Christ with the righteousness that comes from my faith in the Lord Jesus. Because of my faith in the Lord Jesus, he imputes his righteousness upon me, he gives his righteousness, I get, I'm covered by his righteousness, and I want, you know, that I may be found by him having this righteousness because of my faith in Christ, which is from God by faith. First thing, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, okay, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And, and he goes on to, you know, talk about a few things as well, and the fellowship of his suffering being conformed to his death. So, he's talking about, I may know him, that I may know the power of his resurrection, that I may know the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. Okay, so the power of his, that I may know him, first of all, you know, saying that, you know, he's already, now, it's not that he does not know Christ, but he wants to know more of him, right? He wants to know more of him, he wants to have this experiential knowledge of him, and the word, the Greek word he uses this genoscope, which means to, you know, I want to have an experiential knowledge. I want to be intimate, excuse me, intimate with the Lord. I want to know his heart, and I don't, I just, I just want to go beyond this head knowledge. It's not head knowledge anymore, but it's heart knowledge. I want to have a heart understanding. I want to experience an experiential knowledge. I really want to know him. It's not information about him, or knowledge about God, or knowledge about certain things, right? So he has experienced, he has experienced Jesus, he has heard his voice. You know, the Lord has come and he has, he has led him, he had spoken to him, and ministry also, he has experienced his power being filled with the Spirit, and all that. So he says, you know, I want to know him more. Oh, that I may know him, that I may know Christ, that I may, you know, hear his voice, experience more of him, experience his touch, his love, his grace, his favor, right? So all that, that I may know him. So he's saying, more than I know now, more than I know him now. I want to be closer. I want to have a closer walk. See, you know, the passion for the presence of the Lord, right? So it's not just, okay, I'm doing ministry in this place. So many people have come to know the Lord, you know, I'm, you know, taking pride in those things. It's not that at all. So he's saying that I may know him at the end of it all. This is what matters that I may know him. So Paul was, he talks about the kind of effort that he put in ministry. He says, you know, I labored more than them all because yet I know this is the grace of God, the grace of God enabled me to work more, you know, do more and everything. So it's not that he was just sitting around saying, I want to know Christ. No, he did his work. He was moved by the grace of God. He was moved by the compassion of God. And he went about, you know, ministry in science wonders miracles. Like, so we, you know, he did all this by the power of the Lord Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And yet he says that, you know, that I may know him, that I may know him more than I know him now, that I may hear his voice, that I may experience more about Jesus. Okay, so that, that I may know him, verse 10, and the power of his resurrection. So he's talking about the presence of God, the person of the Lord Jesus, and the power of the Lord. At Paul never shied away from letting people know that you need to pursue the power of the Lord Jesus and the power of God, the miraculous, supernatural, miracle-working, you know, raw power of God. There's, you know, it goes where it goes with the presence of God. It goes with the person knowing the person of the Lord. So Paul never held himself back. In fact, he urged people, he, he, you know, in all his teachings, and he urged people to go pursue the presence and the power of God. Like, how do we know that? We, you know, one of the places we see is, of course, here we see this, and about his own, you know, pursuit, and, and of course, he says, be imitators, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So we know that all that he's doing, he's, he's asking people, you know, he's leading by example and asking people to follow the example that he's setting before them. And also we see, you know, in 1 Corinthians 14, right, you see that he's saying, okay, pursue love, desire, spiritual gifts. The spiritual gifts are an expression of the power of the Holy Spirit, right, the power of the Holy Spirit is expressed through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So he's saying, desire, spiritual gifts, pursue love, the love of God, which he spoke about in chapter 13, the agape, the unconditional love of God. So pursue love and the desire, desire, you've seen the word, you know, the intensity, go after, pursue, crave for the power. So here also we see that, oh, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the Holy Spirit resurrection power, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, that he says, you know, that I want to know more about that. I want to, I want to have an experiential knowledge about that, not just read about it, not just talk about it, but I want to experience it, right. Okay. And the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, so which means that, you know, part of following Jesus, well, the sufferings for the sake of Christ is also part of it, right. And like we studied in 2 Corinthians, we see all the, you know, the difficulties and the travel, the persecutions, like he talks about that, right. Let me just quickly read that 2 Corinthians chapter 11, if you see, you know, he writes verse 23 onwards, he says, you know, in labours more abundant in stripes about measure, above measure, in prisons more frequently in deaths often.  In journeys often in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea, among false brethren, weariness and toil and sleeplessness, often in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. And, you know, he lists on all these things and he says, you know, this has been my experience in ministry, right? I undergo this.  And being conformed to his death, meaning, that's the triumphant one, that is being triumphant, right? Because his death actually spoke triumph over everything, over the works of Satan, over the works of the flesh, his work spoke triumph, his death spoke triumph, declared victory. So he's saying, be conformed to his death, like if you read Romans chapter six, right, knowing this, that our old man was crucified within Romans six verse six, and maybe, maybe we can look at verse five also, for if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. So who wrote these words, Paul, right?  So saying, you know, he says in verse six, knowing that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with that, we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he, who has died, has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we should also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to, he lives to God.  So he's saying, you know, this thing, the victory over the flesh, so saying that I might also have that know him and the power of resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being conformed, okay. Now, so, you know, being conformed, being fit into the pattern, right, being conformed, fitting it, right, perfectly being conformed to the, to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Okay. So that's, that's a way of saying that, you know, it's not like he's doubting the resurrection from the dead, that he's saying that I want to be conformed to the death of Jesus, that now when there's a resurrection that I will be conformed to that as well, right, I will attain that as well. So, so that's verse 11. Okay. So now let's look at verse 12 onwards. So not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let us as many as are mature, have this mind. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind. Okay. So verse 12 is, he's just saying, okay, not that I have already attained. Okay, not that I have already reached a place of fully mature, and not that I've already reached, you know, being perfected. Now, if you say, you know, being perfected, he says, you know, I don't count myself to have to have apprehended, verse 12, he says, not that nor I am already perfected. So one of the things we need to understand is that this perfection that he's talking about is not the standing that we have in Christ. It's not, you know, he's not talking about being justified. Because we read in Hebrews that by one sacrifice, what do we read then, right? Yeah, he offered one sacrifice. Okay, I'm looking at Hebrews 10. And verse 12, but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, just skipping down to verse 14, for by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. See the words there. For by one offering, what has he done? He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Okay, so that's something we need to understand that we are perfected forever, but we are being sanctified. There's something that is happening. That is something that has already been done. Okay, so that is Hebrews 10 and verse 14. Okay, so if you look at that, you know, by one offering, one sacrifice, he has perfected, okay, matured, accomplished, completely brought to a finished state, a perfect state. There's nothing more to be done. But at the same time, these are being consecrated or set apart or made holy, separated. Okay, now both, it's a reality for both, but it's talking about two different things here. You are being perfected.  As believers, we are perfected. We are made perfect by that one offering, by that one sacrifice, but we are being sanctified. There's an ongoing sanctification that is happening. Okay, so that is what he's referring to, you know, when he's saying, not that I've already been made perfect. Okay, so he's talking about how we are being sanctified, that he is also being you know, sanctified. So he's saying that not that I'm already perfected, he's talking about the work of sanctification or consecration that is already, you know, that is continuing, that is happening in his life, that he's not already attained. Again, he's talking about that, you know, I've not reached that place. I've not reached that place of, you know, completion yet. Okay, so I've not reached that place. But what does he do? But I press on. I follow after. I pursue. I press on. Which means to go swiftly, to pursue intently. It's the picture of one who's running a race, who's running towards the goal. So he's saying, you know, I press on, I run towards the goal. I pursue the goal. Okay, and how does he do that? Right, in what way does he do that? He says, I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. So I may lay hold of that, you know, that the very reason for which the Lord Jesus has actually captured me, or he has laid hold of me. He has, you know, he has held me. He has apprehended or he has captured me, literally. So he's saying, you know, I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also has laid hold of me. Okay, so that is, that is something that he's saying, you know, I've been captured by Christ. I've been laid hold of, and for all those reasons for which he sees me, he took possession of me. And for all those reasons, I need to lay hold of that. You know, I need to have a strong goal, I need to have a strong hold, sorry. So I press on, I pursue, and I, that I may lay hold of that. Okay, one of those things, what is the things that are freely given, the things that, that God is, you know, extending to me, maybe the revelations, the gifts, the outpouring of the Spirit, everything, I want to lay hold of that. I want to have a strong grip on that, a firm grip on that. Like, you know, he's saying, I don't want to let loose out on that. Right? So that I may hold on to that strongly. I may obtain it, appropriate it, have a strong grip of it. So which means that, you know, Paul says this, you know, you work, walk worthy of the Lord in, in the previous chapter, we see that, you know, he's saying, walk worthy of the Lord. And this is, sorry, yeah, I think it was in chapter one, let your conduct, conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. And he's reminding that this is one way of walking worthy, that you don't lose your grip on things for which Christ has laid hold of you the way, you know, he has actually pursued you. He has, you know, you have made your commitment to the Lord and he's holding you. And there are things that he has extended to you. He has put in your life. He has put in your spirit. So don't lose out on that. I don't have a, don't be negligent of that.  Don't lose that. Don't be distracted. Don't lose your focus. Don't fall by the wayside.  You know, I've not reached that level yet, but I'm pressing on, and I'm so that I may have a strong grip of all these things. Okay. Verse 13, brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, I don't count myself, or I don't consider myself to have apprehended. Okay, that's verse 13. Right. I don't count myself to have already, you know, the same thing, you know, just like how, you know, not that I've already attained, he says, I don't count myself to have already apprehended those things. Okay. But this is one thing that I do. This is one thing that I do. Forgetting those things which are behind. I reach out. Right. I reach forward to those things which are ahead of me. And that is a very, very important lesson for us. Right. So the things that are behind could be regrets and failures. It could be accomplishments also. Right. It could be the high points of our lives. It could be the low points of our lives. It could be things that we are proud of. It could be things that we are not proud of. So here he's saying, if I need to lay hold of that, if I need to keep going forward, if I need to fulfill things that God has for me, then I need to do this. Right. He's saying, he's giving us a key for this. He's saying, you know, an answer for some of those things. So he's saying, you know, one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind. Now, these things have happened in the past. It could be good, bad, whatever. I might have accomplished certain things. I, you know, I'm not going to just stay there. I'm not going to stay there, but I'm going to move forward. Right. Sometimes some of those good things that have happened to us, you know, we just keep thinking about them over and over again. Nothing wrong. We give praise to God. Nothing wrong. We need to testify. Yes. What we need to move on. Reach forward to those things that are ahead. And verse 14 he says, I press towards the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. You know, I'm not forgetting my ministry. I'm not forgetting my purpose, the call of God. I go forward. Okay. There's work to be done. There's things to be accomplished and it involves the call of God. It's not come to an end yet. So forgetting those things that are behind, I press forward. I move forward. Okay. So this is verse 14. Okay. So let's stop here and then we will continue in the next class. Okay. So till Philippines 3 and verse 14, you know, if we've come here, we'll stop here. Okay. Thank you.


The concept of stewardship is an antidote to the old story idea that Earth is just here for our use. Religion framed it that way by saying, you know, God gave it to us to do anything we want with, and it doesn't matter that much what we do with it because in the afterlife, you know, we're beyond matter anyway, it doesn't matter. And science pretty much said the same thing by saying, yeah, it's just a bunch of stuff without the qualities of a self, without the full complement of self-ness. So we had this license to, and I want to say, do anything we want, but that actually taps into some of the beliefs of the old story that what we want is a bad thing, that improvement, that progress comes through the domination of our wants, the domination of nature in other words, the war on inner nature, mirroring the war on outer nature. So it's, so I would even question, well, is that really what we want?  No, that's not what we want. What we want is to fulfill our mission and purpose here. That's what we want. So the old story did give us license, it almost like gave us license to not do what we want. It diverted us onto the inappropriate application of our gifts. So stewardship says that we are surrounded by sacred beings, that the planet, that every landscape on the planet, that every place is itself a sacred being. And that our mission and duty and desire is to take good care of that place, to offer what we are supposed to offer to that place. Stewardship, I mean, some people might even question the appropriateness of the term stewardship, which still kind of puts us in charge of a place. But, you know, I'm not like a stickler for correct language. I think it can be a useful way to think about it.  Here's the land. You're on the land. And you understand, yeah, my job is to be the guardian of this place, to be the steward of this place, to take really good care of it, to represent its interests in intersection with the human world. Maybe that would be a definition of stewardship. Really, it's about participation and service.


At Audiology Associates at Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. You'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 Northlake Drive in Prestonsburg. The judge executive of Martin County, Colby Kirk, has announced his resignation today. I went up to Ines, Kentucky to learn more about what this means for the upcoming election. Colby is on the ballot and opposed, and so now we start a new ballgame. The thing is, the ballots have already been printed, so of course his name is already on the ballot. So what that entails for me and my office is that we will be doing right. Kirk would have been running unopposed in this year's election, which means there's now an empty seat and a bit of confusion on what's to come next. Well, this is actually a first for me as long as I'm being in the office, and so it is a learning experience for all of us. But I do believe that it's going to go smooth. I don't even know how to estimate how many people will come in to sign up. If you're interested in signing up, the deadline is October 28th. What they would do is they would go onto the Secretary of State's website and fill out their financial. Then they will come in here with two people to sign for them and fill out forms, and it is a $50 fee, and they sign the book, and that makes them official. If you're interested in running for Judge Executive, you can learn more by contacting the County Clerk's office in Martin County. For Mountain Top News, I'm Jamison Killen.