The Milkweed Mercantile Eco Inn has been open since April, 2010. While we haven’t yet done the official math, the Inn seems to be full a lot more than we were advised to expect. We, of course, are delighted. Not only do we get the opportunity to host the families of members of Dancing Rabbit and Red Earth Farms but a growing number of people we don’t even know (!) are coming to visit. We LOVE this!
Our guests hear about us in a number of ways, one of which is a website called bedandbreakfast.com. Through our affiliation with this website we heard about a promotion in November for Veterans Day. It’s not very complicated – we simply agree to make one room available for free to someone who is currently serving or who has served in the US military. Kurt and I decided that if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right, and so are making all four of our rooms available on Wednesday, November 10th.
That we, self-professed left-leaning, liberal, anti-war eco-freaks are participating in a Veterans Appreciation event may surprise some. I imagine that many folks, both at Dancing Rabbit and in the wider Northeastern Missouri communities will be, well, shocked. So many assumptions are made about us – assumptions about how we must think, assumptions about what we must believe, and assumptions about how we act in the privacy of our own community.
So let’s just set the record straight.
I think war is the most supremely stupid way to settle a disagreement. I am furious that leaders of nations use the sons and daughters of others as fodder in games to increase the bottom lines of corporations.
I love that General Dwight Eisenhower said:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” (Speech delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C. April 16, 1953)
BUT.
We support the troops – the men and women, the individuals who are doing a job that they may or may not believe in. We’d really like to support them by bringing them home, but until we can make that happen, we intend to build bridges. Kurt and I (and many others) are looking for ways to find things that bring us all together, places in which to begin conversations, areas of commonality where we can learn to see who each of us is, as an individual, rather than as a stereotype. If we, members of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, continue preaching only to the choir, how will we ever make any headway towards a more sustainable world?
This was really brought home to us a few months ago when a couple from St. Louis came for the weekend. She was a rabid "tea party" believer; however, in one of the first Tea Party meetings she went to she was poo-pooed for her concern for the environment, for her enthusiasm about her compost bin and home garden, for her willingness to walk rather than drive every where. So she started her own sustainability study group (it was up to 80 people in just a few months). And she came to us for help. How cool is THAT?
All are welcome here at the Milkweed Mercantile. We do not have to agree on politics, religion, or lifestyle choices. All we ask is that we all remain respectful of the choices of others, and we will participate, as much as we are able, with kindness, compassion and an open heart. It’s the only way that change is going to come.
If you are a vet, or know someone who is give them our number: 660-883-5522. We still have three (free) rooms open for Wednesday, November 1oth. A valid Military or VA ID will be required for each reservation.
NOTE ADDED 10/13/10 - ALL OF OUR ROOMS FOR VETS ARE FILLED. Please sign up for our mailing list to be notified about next year's event by clicking here and entering your email address in the box in the top right. Thanks!
