Encouraging Minedfullness

The "Filling up of Beakers" this evening was on the ropey side, as liturgy goes. We pride ourselves on quiet dignity, contemplation and above all mindfulness.
Ah, mindfulness. The "wellbeing" of spiritual practice.

We attempt to be mindful, to dwell in the moment - to tabernacle, if you will, in the real. Knowing that a moment in which we have been mindful, is one that we have truly minded.

Or mined. When I asked Young Keith to allow for a spirit of mindfulness, he took that to mean mined-fullness. A Moot House full of mines. Nothing too serious - nothing actually weapons-grade. But he seems to have thought that it would encourage us to consider the evil of these weapons, and the industry that produces them, by putting small explosive charges under the carpet tiles in the Moot House. Not just a few, as in the old Windows game. But all of the tiles.  Beaker Folk were hopping all over the place, to the accompaniment of St Enya's "Shepherd Moons".

Running out the Moot House, we discovered that he'd mined the path during the Initial Devotions. And the lawn. In desperation, a group of us made it to the duck pond and jumped in the rowing boat.

We saw the dull, round object, bristling with spikes, too late. Turns out he bought the old naval mine from a Mission to Sailors on the Essex coast, and loaded it with a sugar-based explosive.

So not only did we end up in three feet of muddy water; we were covered in what was essentially caramel. Why did he put condensed milk in that mine?

Learn this lesson. Mines are bad things. They should not be used. Not in war, and definitely not in worship. Not if everybody ends up smelling like a toffee apple.