By: Kyle Muñoz
On October 26th Witches, Ghouls, Ghost, and some popular characters from movies and TV took part in a unique Halloween themed Afterglow. People dressed as pirates, hockey players, zombies, a Menards worker, Michael Myers, Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. and Indiana Jones. The Afterglow band, also dressed in costume, performed songs like “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow and the Halloween classic “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. Part of the service also involved a costume contest, where contestants strutted their stuff on the runway and had their costumes judged. The winners of the costume contest were as follows: 3rd place, Angel Arthur as Maleficent, 2nd place, Luke Clarke as Clint Eastwood, and 1st place, Audrey and Addison Cole as Wall-E and Eve.
With all the scary creatures about, the theme for the night was “Do Not be Afraid.” Kenzlee Frizzell and Morgan Diaz gave messages on the topic of overcoming fear. Frizzell, a sophomore COSA rep for Sariah, discussed how she experienced fear playing basketball growing up. She explained how her parents required her to keep trying despite the fear she was experiencing. Frizzell went on to explain that as she continued to try, while still experiencing a level of discomfort about playing basketball, she began to have fun and even wanted to continue playing basketball, overcoming that fear. She ended her message with some positive words of encouragement for listeners, stating “even when you are afraid, do it anyway and everything will be okay!”
Morgan Diaz, the director of residence life, gave a message on overcoming fear as well. She discussed how overcoming fear is a common idea between many faith traditions and spiritual beliefs. Diaz also discussed the reasons people experience fear including due to expectations of failure, loss, and physical and emotional pain. She discussed her experiences breaking her arm as a child, and how others thought that should have made her afraid of future actions. Diaz explained how it is possible to not experience fear when there is too much going on and how obliviousness has helped her overcome fear despite there being “so much opportunity for us to be afraid, whether we know it or not.” Diaz also discussed how, while “fear is natural and we all experience it in some way or another,” it can also “lead to ignorance or injustices or loss or violence,” and so we must not allow fear dictate that we do wrong things or miss out on opportunities. She continued discussing how, like her transition to Residence Life Director here at Graceland, she has gone through many changes in the past year that has caused her to experience her deepest fear, that of being alone. Diaz then explained “fear is real, but so is hope!” She encouraged listeners to use “Stubborn Hope.” By writing down one's fears and hopes then sharing them with others, hope can be spread to others and reinforced in oneself. This “Stubborn Hope” will be created by building a community of hopefulness and can then be used to combat the fear in one’s life. With these messages from Frizzell and Diaz, Afterglow attendees left feeling empowered and encouraged to go out into their lives and face their fears, knowing “it will be okay,” especially when armed with “Stubborn Hope.”
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