"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night" - Genesis 1:6
It is my pleasure and honor to make my Mainstage directorial debut with acts of faith by David Yee.
Some may know that outside of my artistic career, I also serve as an ordained clergy leader at Today’s Church Tampa Bay. I’ve found living my life by my personal spiritual principles has been a constant balance of my greater light and my lesser light…my darkness. But what does it mean when we thrive too heavily in the darkness? When others' darkness is so overwhelming that we believe our own light has been extinguished? How do we reconcile what we’ve always known to be right and true with a new version of ourselves that may include some of that darkness?
We all navigate this battle, perhaps with different phrasing, and to many it can be assumed that the “right” choice is to constantly exist in the light. What I’ve discovered in my personal experience and through David Yee’s work is that the highest and best goal is a healthy balance of our greater and lesser lights. As surely as the sun and the moon, one cannot exist without the other. It can be so easy to spiral and allow too much of one or too much of the other, but at the end of the day, there are both forms of light needed on this Earth as we exist to learn, grow and thrive.
So will you leave with all the answers as you watch Faith navigate through her journey of her greater and lesser light? No, probably not. My hope is that your own light is reignited and invigorated with a curiosity to learn more about your own light, and how you might recognize and celebrate that same light in others.
Whether greater or lesser, it’s all light. It’s all love.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” - 1 Corinthians 13:6-8
All is Well,
Patrick Arthur Jackson
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acts of faith
by David Yee
directed by Patrick Arthur Jackson
From the African Copperbelt to the backwoods of Canada, acts of faith follows a young woman named Faith who gets mistaken for a prophet. When a revered religious leader attempts to take advantage of her plight, Faith begins using her ‘gift’ to right wrongs and punish the wicked. In this subversive and witty new play, she will face the ultimate test of her convictions in a final showdown between good and evil.