Free Hugs

    Tomorrow, at 3:30 IN THE MORNING, I arrive at the MPLS airport. My destination? San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo, the Alamo Dome, and this years Lutheran National Youth Gathering. Tens of thousands of kids from across the United States will gather in one city to worship, learn about God, and serve the community together. It's going to be fantastic.

    I attended the last Youth Gathering in New Orleans. I was a little freshman who didn't know the next thing about socializing with my peers. The vast crowds of other teenagers intimidated me. Everywhere I looked there was either some beautiful girl or some weird looking guy I didn't want to know or some adult that looked out of place amongst the throng of youngsters.

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It was like this, only with infinitely more hormones. 

    However, there was one stupid little trend that was happening that helped me come out of my shell and become the slightly more extroverted introvert that I am today. There were these guys with signs that said "Free Hugs." They were all over the place. Every day I'd see more and more of them.

    That's it. It wasn't some lesson by a famous speaker that inspired me to be more open to people. It wasn't some spiritual revelation, either. It was just these dudes with signs.

    I've always enjoyed a good hug, no matter who is giving it. For me, hugs are a way for people to say whatever I need to hear at the time, even if they have no idea that I am even struggling with something. Hugs are a universal way of saying, "I'm right here if you need me." Plus, they just feel really nice.

    I decided to make my own "Free Hugs" sign, because I lack originality and there were a lot of cute girls. That day, I got dozens of hugs from strangers from all walks of life. I quickly realized that this whole "interacting with strangers" thing wasn't nearly as horrifying as I had originally thought it might be. I didn't get as many hugs from cute girls as I had originally planned, but that selfish reasoning had fallen by the wayside. I was now in it for the feels. The feels you get when you make someone else feel happy. 

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"You aren't terrible, and I appreciate your existence."
"Aw! Thanks friend!"

    My cause did eventually become a contest between my female friend and I to see who could get the most hugs in a day. She won because she's a girl and guys are lame. However, I had decided that for the next Youth Gathering, things would be different. I would try to change people's lives in the way mine was changed during that wonderful week.

    Over the past few years I have obtained many close friends who like hugging nearly as much as I do. Most of my friends, male or female, have so much affection for one another that we don't care how stupid we look when we express it. My guy friends and I often start our conversations with, "I love you.", and it isn't awkward and no one goes, "Lol, gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay." It's just how we talk. We genuinely love each other. And we hug. All. The. Time.

    I really am blessed to have such wonderful friends, but some people don't have those kinds of supportive and caring relationships. Many people out there never, ever get hugged, and that makes me sad. Which is why I am making it my mission to go out of my way to hug people. I even made a t-shirt!

Front

Back

    Now, one of my friends raised a legitimate point. He told me that I'm not the first guy to come up with this idea of "Free Hugs". "No offense," he said, "but you know that girls find 'those' people to be annoying and creepy, and the real reason guys do that is because they just want to feel a girl..."

    Sadly, yes, there are a lot of those douchebags out there who only want hugs from cute girls. I already admitted that that is how I started out, and I totally feel embarrassed by it. And I realize that a lot of people will probably see me wearing the shirt and be put off by it. I'll get weird looks and raised chins, and many people will feel indignant towards me.

    And you know what? That's okay. If I make only ONE person's day?. I'll feel validated. If I change ONe person's life? It'll  be the best decision I ever made.

    If you really think about it, that's what Christians are called to do. We are called to share Christ's love no matter what people think of us. I will be surrounded on all sides by fellow Christians of the same denomination as me, and I'll still probably be looked down upon. Lutheran's, especially LCMS Lutherans, are not really known for their free-spiritedness.

    Now, this is where I ask you people out there to try my little love experiment. Whether you are on your way to the Youth Gathering, or are reading this after the fact, or, most likely, you are not involved with it whatsoever, I call on YOU to give a genuine hug today. And tomorrow. And forever.

    You don't need a nice little t-shirt to give hugs. Just do it. Do it because you care. Do it because you love people. Do it because hugs feel nice and everyone deserves to feel nice every once in awhile.

"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

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Ask Me Anything!

    Hello friends! I have been wondering exactly what I should do to keep this blog going. Not that I'm running out of ideas, per se, I simply want to keep it fresh. I don't want to just have a bunch of sequels and series occasionally parted by originality.

    So, after much deliberation, I decided that simply being more original was too much work.

    "What can I do to create both original content and content that people would actually want to read?" I asked myself.

    "But of course! CROWDSOURCING!" I enthusiastically responded.

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Any one of them is more qualified than me for any number of things. All of them together would be almost too much competency for this blog to handle.

    Therefore, dear readers, I have decided to answer questions. Any questions. I'll split them into two groups: Multiple short responses in one post, and more deliberate and lengthy responses to a single question in one post.

    Basically, the fun, short, silly questions get grouped together and exterminated at once. The big, meaty, more serious questions will be taken apart piece by piece, one at a time.

    Send me questions on Facebook, or email, or in the comments of this post, and any questions posts that follow. You don't have to tell me if you want it to be anonymous, I'll keep all of them anonymous. Just for sanity's sake.

    Yeah. That's it. Please actually send me questions, even if they are silly. I will answer all of them, as long as they are appropriate, until such a time when I receive so many thousands upon thousands of urgent queries that I can simply no longer answer "What's the weather like?" or "Can you lick your elbow?"

    P.S.
    The weather is cold and wet, and no, I can not. Can you?

Random Confessions #2

    - I can totally believe it's not butter

    - My grad party is in two days, and other than clean my room a bit, I have done almost no preparing. My parents are amazing.

    - I think people that have watched more than one full season of Dr. Who and still do not like it either have bad taste in television or are part Dalek.

    - I have multiple unfinished or barely even started posts (Gaming Nostalgia Part 2, Apologetics Part 2, and many more) that I haven't finished because they are too hard. I have no idea when I shall finish them. IF you've been checking frequently to find any one post in particular, you can simmer down a bit...it could be awhile.

    - I used to be embarrassed by my last name, but I kind of like it now, because I realize that it makes other people uncomfortable that they find it funny, but are too polite to say anything about it. Hickey. HICKEY. HICKEEEEEY! Also, it's Irish, and Ireland is awesome.

    - I'm only writing this to procrastinate on the aforementioned difficult, unfinished posts.

    - I have a back-scratcher that looks like a tiger. I am using it right now. Be jealous.

    - I am terrible with money. I blame that partly on my generosity, and partly on how I was trained by games like Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim. In real life, I am not a badass cowboy or a nigh-unkillable demigod, and I do not get into fights with lawmen and bandits every few minutes, and therefore I do not have bodies to loot and make cash off of. I sometimes forget this, and blow a ton of money. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

    - If I ever meet the guy who does the Spotify ads in real life, I'm going to punch him in the face. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but still...ugh.

    - I have mowed the lawn barefoot multiple times. That's right, dad. And I still stand by my believe that it is no more dangerous with shoes on. I was tempted to write an entire rant on this the other day, and give it it's own post. I still might.

    - I've been known to walk on the left side of the stairs, even when other people are coming down. Sometimes things don't always go the way you want, and you just have to get out of the way.

    - I'm German and Irish and I hate the taste of beer.

    - I'm the one who let the dogs out.

    - We got rid of my sister's rabbit because nobody wanted to take care of it anymore. I'm not even remotely sad about it.

    - I once snorted an entire Pixie Stick - one of the long one - for five dollars. My nose bled for hours.

    - If you tell me you enjoy getting drunk or high, I automatically assume I'm a little bit smarter than you.