Hostage to Heirlooms

It's been three years since we last had to rebuild the Moot House. It shows.

Gyegph kindly bequeathed the additional tea light stand. We already had a tea light stand. The one Guerone donated. We couldn't throw out the original, or Guerone would have been offended. We couldn't refuse the new one, as it was a bequest.

So we have three tea light stands. Oh yeah. Don't forget the one from when we built the Moot House. The one that is built into the tea light alcove. The one with "Dominus Illuminatio Mea" engraved over it. Obviously, the inscription was a gift, from Dominux - a former don. So we can't lose the original tea light stand. The inscription would look stupid, beings it's curled round a carved tea light.

Forgot the Little Pebbles tea light stand, didn't I? They wanted their own tea light stand, and for health and safety reasons we didn't want them near the lit tea lights. So they've got a special stand, with LED tea lights. Lovely it is. They made it our of a Weetabix box at "Messy Quadragesima". It's a bit charred and tatty, but we can't lose it, can we.

And then there's the candle stands.  Six, in total. All donated by somebody who just wanted to make a statement about light in the darkness.

I'll be honest. We've kind of distorted the local candle market. The bee keepers for miles around are living in the lap of luxury, as I have run endless candle-making classes. And Tesco have just started doing tea light home delivery in an artic. But people can only light so many portable light sources, you know? We're all candled out; that's the truth of it.

And then Debriz bought us the Worship Focus Kneelers. A set of beautifully cushioned Kneelers, on which one can kneel - you probably guessed that - so as to view the Worship Focus.

Nobody has ever knelt on those Kneelers. You can see the Focus perfectly well without kneeling.

But they were donated.

Down by the South Door, we discovered an old sofa one day. Hnaef was halfway to the dump with it before we discovered it was a donation. Back it came. Had to write a letter of thanks.

And the Mission Praise first editions. In a parallel universe they might be valuable one day. But Drognir brought them with him from his old church when they threw him out. So they have to stay in the Mission Praise Cabinet that Marston so kindly built out of old pallets. And added  a brass plaque to so we can't throw them away.

The thing is, well-wishers have donated us so much general stuff, we can't actually get any worshippers into the Moot House for Spiritual Occasions. The Quire have been invisible behind the Worship Focus Tapestry (and inaudible due to the Speaker Cosies) for months.

Since the donation of all those beach balls, the weather's been pretty good. We've been out in the Orchard enjoying the wonders of nature. But the day is coming when we're gonna need to move inside for the autumn. There's only one thing for it.

I'm gonna have another Moot House built.

Sure, the other one will remain. We'll let people go in, say how lovely it is, light a tea light or bounce a liturgical beach ball. But the new Moot House is gonna be purist, austere, clean-lined, classic. And it's gonna stay that way.

Largo has already promised to donate us a carpet.