You should *not* use `DEFAULT_SESAME_DATABASE` this way, because then it only reads the configuration item's value once, when the module is loaded.  If it gets changed at runtime (and `ConfigurationItem`s can indeed change at runtime), the function won't know.  A better alternative is to default to `None` and do ``database =DEFAULT_SESAME_DATABASE() if database is None else database`` at the top of the function
(or do as I suggested above and ditch the keyword entirely).