Rule breaker

(Written a few days ago, but internet was down when we tried in Gatundu)
Searching for paper to start a fire yesterday, I came across my extra fund raising letters and information sheets--the papers I passed out at churches--and was free to use them. Thank you, dear supporters, for pushing me along. I am being transformed by the relationships I have here.
How does this work? I had a discussion about culture recently that made me look for changes in my spectacles. Here's the example we discussed(given by my friend and fellow teacher Maina).
A century ago, a certain African ethnic group thinks twins are cursed. So, they burn them or leave them out to die. A white man, upon moving to the area, sees this as a tragedy and adopts the ones left outside, rearing them as his own children, watching as they become upstanding, powerful members of the society that originally rejected them.
Maina's conclusion: they weren't cursed. The culture was wrong. I don't dispute that, but from an epistemological perspective, the culture doesn't learn this about itself naturally. I mean, if the culture's rules were followed, no one in the culture would be able to evaluate it. The "culture" of abandoning twins is only seen to be unnecessary when broken. Now, elders of this community have two options in this scenario: (1) continue as if the grown, intelligent, successful twins are still cursed, or (2) rethink the cultural stigma. This rethinking process is only made possible by the rulebreaking of the white man. You can't examine your glasses if you don't know where they start and your eyes end. This person, because of his culture's ethic, has given people an opportunity to examine their worldview. Breaking someone's rules were the only way to show
So here, I questioned a worldview yesterday when it sounded like someone wanted Kenya to become America. When I go home, I want to question Americans about progress without reevaluation of worldview. New eyes and a bigger imagination make better change. Without imagination, rich people moving to the suburbs decades ago engineered neighborhoods which can now only be reasonably navigated by car. People accept an hour commute by car every morning, but shun a 45-minute commute by foot. Without imagination, we get stuck with either-or political parties, both extremes offending sensibility. Imagination is sometimes the ability to see through conflict to underlying unity, to see a way forward to reconciliation. And new paths are sometimes only revealed when we observe the consequence of "breaking" the culture. But how do know what to break? I don't think we are ready to have our culture broken by running around naked. It has to be slow and halting--people don't listen to a stranger in a strange land. Change perceptions by breaking them perceptibly, not by completely changing people's ways of life and thinking. They tend to kill over that.
But maybe imposition is breakable--consider that as a point of contention. Our (Euro Americans') personal property and our time is so sacred that visits are limited to invitation only. I don't often hear of people (outside of a university setting or really close friends) simply dropping by someone's house to say hello or to ask a request, or especially to spend some days there. The overnight is the biggest imposition of all. Is it because we are so used to using our guest rooms as studies (which is convenient)? Do we worry that there's not enough cereal in the pantry for our guest's breakfast ($5 says there is)? No. Because we don't have to. Our culture says it's an "imposition," so we're not likely to receive unexpected guests and go without leftovers. But a gospel of abundance kills the overgrown American concept of scarcity of time. A gospel of community ends the individual's tyranny over house and homestuffs. So I encourage you, impose on someone this month. Within reason and especially within compassion, of course. Impose on someone to show them that you call them a part of your life. Give someone an opportunity to do so, and help them examine their cultural spectacles.
Anyway, that's some stuff I've been mulling over recently. As far as happenings, Josh and I had a nice visit to Meru to see Deanna and Sweetwater, a game reserve in Nanyuki. It was beautiful--saw my first elephant in the wild. It was small and feisty. Breaking a branch, it shooed our bus along the road away from its private munching grounds. I had no way to tell it we were not going to hurt it, especially while we kept roaring at it with our beefy engine.