Fast forward, I ended up graduating from the youth program. My mother was so proud of me but I still felt like a failure. Months later, I still couldn’t get the gospel the way I was supposed to. I still watched in awe how my peers were moved and had the ability to move others through preaching. I felt like an outcast…the same way I did when I started the program. For me, it became about ticking the boxes, but for my mother, it was about raising a strong, God-fearing woman. In her eyes I was exactly that, in mine, I was a con artist.
Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a bit. To be honest, the church would have probably been my favorite place only if there wasn’t so much pressure and comparisons. I don’t think the elders did it intentionally. They rightfully wanted to raise children that God would be proud of, but in the process children such as my young self, suffocated.
I eventually stopped going to church when my mom passed on. It wasn’t because I could finally do what I wanted without her constantly making me go to church, but because at her funeral, they kept on singing her favorite hymn over and over again. I was so damn depressed and annoyed, but it was what my mom would have wanted.
Here’s a thing…..you die, the congregation and the community visit your family every evening for a service where the aim is to use the word of God to comfort those who are left behind. Verses are read and deciphered, hymns are sung and instead of getting comfort, the family gets more and more depressed. If that isn’t enough, for a person like my mom who had a certain position in the church’s older women’s group, her peers knew her so well that they wanted to make sure they honor her in a way that she would have appreciated…in this situation it was singing the same song over and over and over again. A song about God’s mercy. How ironic seeing that I wasn’t feeling any of the mercy? Mind you, my church prides itself on slow and depressing songs. I honestly never understood how that was meant to hype me up. Then came the dilemma of associating the songs with the funerals.
Funerals? Yes, funerals. My mom passed on 2 days after we buried my father. We had to bury her the week of her passing to save on costs, especially for those who were coming from out of town. So for two consecutive weeks, we went through the ritual of people coming in and annoying me with their songs and messages of “hope”.
I remember during my mom’s funeral…two of my classmates had the audacity to gossip about me and laugh at my shoes. One of them was a very beautiful singer who really did justice to one hymn. The same hymn she sang at my house when my father was sick and my classmates and teachers decided to come to show their love. This is the same hymn that was constantly sung at funerals. It talks about how God knows what we are going through and what we need. The one hymn I could relate to was sung by the same Christian girl who spoke badly about me at my most fragile time.
If that’s what being a Christian was like, then I did not want any part of it.
Jane Mpholo is a multi-award winning theatre Practitioner and an Audience Development Specialist at the Performing Arts Centre of the Free State (PACOFS) . She has been active on both the national and international platforms with collaborations with practitioners from the Netherlands, USA and Australia, to name a few. Jane is a senior judge for the World Monologue Games and World Monologue Film Festival. Her highlights as a writer include being chosen as one of the 5 top playwrights for the NATi Yong Sterre program for her script "The Dawn", making it to the top 20 playwrights list for the African Women Playwrights Festival of Plays for her script "The Naked Truth" (which she later turned into a short film) and having her script "Fragmented" on the program for Teksmark 2022. Her autobiographical show "Psalm 69" has proved to be timeless and has showcased on both the national and international platforms such as the Global leadership summit 2018. Jane is a panel member for the National Arts Council and is a former FS Provincial Liaison for the BASA Debut Program. She is a recent graduate for the BASA Cultural Producers Program, an initiative between British Council; BASA, Common Purpose and the Manchester International Festival. Her short film "Cleanse" which looks at the life of a woman under oppression as a domestic worker has won multiple international awards and aired on DSTV pop up channel 150 (Woordfees TV 2022). Jane is also one of the contributors for the Stemme/Voices monologues 2022, an initiative by the Suidoosterfees.
Jane practices as a professional actor (has over 40 theatrical shows under her belt), playwright, producer, dramaturge, facilitator, arts coach , speaker and mentor. She is passionate about inclusive education and creating a safe space for audiences to engage in discussions pertaining to the social ills of the world. She is a true advocate for human rights.
Amongst the many awards and recognitions....she is a three times Kyknet Fiesta Nominated artist and made it to the lists "Mail and Guardian Women Changing South Africa" and the "Sunday World Unsung Heroes 2022".
