I was surprised how much I could relate to the sister in this question.
I was angry when our father called me up all hours day and night asking what to do about my then-missionary brother and his stack of anti-Mormon lit. I was angry that my brother would have taken it as far as going on a mission without resolving whatever doubts he had not then shared with me. I was afraid of losing face and being even more of a "weird family" than we already were. I was upset that he wasn't playing clean, and going for the counter-evidence which would hold no weight for our father and those like him. I didn't know what to do with these reversed roles: I had for five years been the rebellious child and my brother was the perfect one who could do no wrong and there's a certain comfort in knowing your role in the family. I was pissed to be woken up before seven or kept up past midnight.
But my brother didn't owe it to me or anyone else to "be perfect;" he's an adult and can read what he likes, even if the time and place is inadvisable. I pretty much stopped caring about our familial "reputation" and just live my own life. Maybe I did set a bad example down the garden path of mochas and inactivity, although I seriously doubt it. (He doesn't even like coffee.) Besides as a young person I was always told I couldn't build my testimony off others'; I don't think you can lose your testimony off others', either. I do think he owed it to his missionary comps to shape up or ship out, which of course he actually did the latter. I'm sure I projected a lot of my own loneliness and questions and uncertainty back onto my family.
I really do think that unconditional love is the answer, no matter what happens with the brother. When I told my brother that I loved him no matter what, even though I thought some of his tactics were all wrong, and didn't really understand at first why he'd maintained a facade for years and years (I understand a lot better, now), then it just dispelled a lot of the tension and helped everyone move on. In fact, it's hard to believe he's been home for six months: it all seems somewhat unreal now. Even if SAC's brother leaves, things will come to a new equilibrium.
Speaking of "feeling angry at him for his choices," I'm still angry at some level about my father's choice of who and when and how to remarry. It exists and that's my reality and it's okay. But at recently as Father's Day, I couldn't make myself go over there and I just moped and read Dave Eggers. Yesterday was my dad's birthday. I don't think spending time with him is an endorsement of his life choices. I try to be cordial to That Woman even when it is difficult.
We all went and watched Guardians of the Galaxy and the opening scene was pretty much the emotional wringer for me on so many levels. They of course reference Footloose a lot, and I was in that show this summer. There's a very cathartic scene when he yells to his parentis in absentia, "Why'd you have to leave Mom and me? I hate you!" I've managed to feel exactly that way about pretty much all the parental figures in my life, including my bio dad, and I don't know, I think it's a legitimate way to feel when your parents are straight-up neglectful or just make their mistakes with you. Later in the play the reverend guy says that he acted like he was the only one who had lost someone in the accident, "that his pain was the greatest, that my hurt was the deepest," and was starting to recognize that this wasn't the case. He "gave up his burden," and it was a "terrifying experience, but an exhilarating one."
I think everyone's individual faith crisis seems momentous and unique to oneself. I think if SAC extend compassion and love to her brother, she might not get a magical testimony fairy make it all better (I certainly didn't!), but she will grow to be a better person. And I'd like to think that's what matters, in the balance.
#78715 the brother and the faith crisis
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