Words & Communication
Articles mainly about the power of words, listening, speaking, encouragement through words, conversations.
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Impact and Intent
There can be a uniformity between impact and intent. However, not until we know and understand how to create this congruency is it possible to master the vital skill of creating healthy relationships.
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First Word Joy
I have a sign on my office door that I made that reads, “First Word Joy.” I consider how differently my day begins when I select to focus on delight in God, life, and people.
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Dear Friends
Our scripture memory verse this past week was 1 Peter 4:12-13. It begins, “Dear Friends.” The words in Greek translates as “those who are beloved, deeply loved.” Who are these dear friends in your life?
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Desperate Child Needs
The need to belong and to have something of value to belong to; the need to have success and be recognized for this success; the need to love and be loved.
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Jewels or Snakes
I am thinking about Numbers 21:6-9 and the snakes again that bit and killed the thankless people of God.
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Curiosity Trumps Anger
Curiosity opens doors; anger closes doors. The Apostle James gives us solid counsel when he said, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger for anger never brings about the righteous life God desires for…
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Words and Snakes
I read an interesting passage of scripture from the Old Testament. It is the story of the complaining Israelites who are unhappy about being in the desert.
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Pondering Schism
I find myself reflecting on a troubling trend emerging within church communities. This issue revolves around the contrasting doctrinal narratives concerning God’s love and His wrath.
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Relational Errors
As human beings, we all make mistakes. Often, we unintentionally hurt those around us. While saying, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” may provide some comfort, it doesn’t truly fix the situation.
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Creative Affirmations
Scripture tells us, “In the beginning was the word and the word was God.” I consider the coding of our DNA, I consider the world of words, the messages that speak to us day and night.
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Listening for the Truth
One of the greatest gifts my dad had as a father was his insistence on total relational transparency regarding emotions. He wanted a home where truth reigned.
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Coming to the Table
One of our staff posted something on their social media which deeply grieved another staff member. This is always challenging. How do we handle our disagreements?
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Healing Conversations
Dad and I had lovely conversations. He was a masterful listener and question-asker most of the time. When we had a spare moment, he might start by saying something he appreciated about my life.
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Hearing God’s Voice
Dad believed and lived that God was speaking to him. He prayed to attentively listen and hear what God was saying.
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The Courage of Conversation
Dad and I often talked together in surprise how fearful people are to compassionately engage in difficult conversations.
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Preparing Children for Faith
In this advent season, I love to read the first chapters of the Book of Luke. I am struck by John coming to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah.
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Circle of Listening
I am always surprised by transformation. There are so many stories throughout history of people on a tragic trajectory until grace intervenes and changes the outcome.
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The Path of Destruction When We Don’t Listen
I have been reading Proverbs recently. Dad loved this book of the Bible, and we talked about it often. He and I both struggle with listening.
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Where Truth Dwells
One statement that has been thrilling my mind is this, “The natural habitat for truth is human conversation.” How we speak to others reveals how we live. So powerful!
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Living and Active
Da d and I would discuss why Bible classes in Christian schools and colleges were often the worst classes, boring, uninspired, didactic, and lacking. I think about this in my own life.
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Naming
I have a few friends having babies soon and one of the fun parts is to learn the name. It’s amazing how children live into a name. It’s a creative act to name a child.
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The Antidote for Sullenness
I was talking to a woman about our family’s mealtime conversation and daily spotlighting. She looked skeptical. “What if you had a sullen child who didn’t want to respond?” she asked. I was surprised for a minute.
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Miraculous Power
My dad started a practice of letter writing at camp and for the last fifty-plus summers, student-athletes pause during the week to write a letter to a family member or key mentor.
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The Power of Story
My friend reached out to tell me about a new form of Christian counseling that involves writing out a traumatic story and walking through that story with a trained facilitator in a small group setting.
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Words of Hope
I love thinking about the phrase, “Words of Hope.” I meditate on each piece of the phrase. WORD – Some of my dad’s favorite scripture verses he and I memorized include this.
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Verbal Guardrails
Camp is in full swing with many moving parts and of course unforeseen challenges. Most of these come out of nowhere surprising me without warning.
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How Love Speaks
During a poetry night at our house, we played a round of “speed friendship” and then ended with the question, “Who is someone who has influenced your life for good?” One of the young men in attendance is…
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Learning How to Comfort
I was cleaning out a backpack and found a staff meeting paper from March 11, 2020. This was the last time we met in person as a team before we closed the office for several months.
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The Secret to A Long and Happy Life
A close friend sent me a Ted Talk that is the most watched in Ted history. This talk references the longest study of adults done to date.
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Celebrating People
I found a note from my dad. Dad wrote amazing words of encouragement. He celebrated people and made me feel like I could run through a brick wall if I had to.
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What You Need When You Need It
We have a chalkboard with the “verse of the week” stenciled across the top hanging above the NBC Camps office sink.
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Careful Listening
Dad and I struggled with listening. Shann would laugh at our conversations sometimes when we were both distracted. When present, Dad was an amazing listener. It is one of the big six qualities at NBC Camps—carefully listen.
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Relational Tipping Points
My husband Shann and I have been talking a lot about the criticism/defensiveness cycle and how insightful it is for relational health. I have found it valuable in my relationships lately.
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Fair and Truthful Conversations about Faith
If we go shopping, it is almost always going to be for a book. One of the new ones we picked up was from a cute shop in London.
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Hand Vac
Shann and I were speaking at a conference about forgiveness. It’s always amazing how everyone gets overwhelmed with this topic.
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Forgiveness Revolution
At the conference Shann and I spoke at, we invited people to practice asking forgiveness. I role played with a woman who had been a Princeton professor for many years. Her eyes were incredibly empathetic.
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Navigating Loneliness
I would really love to have a conversation with my dad about loneliness. I never asked him if he struggled feeling lonely. The main definition of loneliness is a feeling of being disconnected.
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Miracle Life
A friend of mine told me she heard about my dad’s love for calling people “a miracle.” She began to do this as a substitute teacher in a Western Washington school district.
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Able to Move
Our family liked to tease Dad that he would be peaceful hearing about his car being wrecked but enraged about five crumbs on the table.
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Godly Boundaries
I have been learning about boundaries. They are incredibly challenging and require discernment. You can see the problem of lack of boundaries in politics.
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Selfish Ambition Disguised as Evangelism
I watched a video of a woman sitting down with two college students. Her intent was to share the gospel. They recorded their conversation.
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Greetings and Partings
My husband Shann and I often celebrate that we live in the Golden Age of research. We can communicate to anyone, regardless of philosophy or religion, what truly works and what does not.
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Community of Trust
At NBC Camps, our team often talks about creating true community together. We discuss the difference between health and toxicity. At the root of toxicity is contempt, criticism, defensiveness, or stonewalling.
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Listen for the Blessing
I like to talk. Sadly, I often talk too much, and about the wrong thing. This hurts my relationship with my family. I say something that is judgmental, fearful, or just plain bothersome.
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Gentle Impact
I read a brilliant insight from the Gottman Marriage Minute. What I love about John Gottman’s research is that it is immediately applicable to any relationship. Need a better relationship with your child?
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On Writing Words of Hope
A very sweet friend took me to lunch. She has been so kind in sending encouragement after a Words of Hope message she resonated with. As we met for lunch, she asked me about the writing process.
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Speed Friendship
Our family has a fun mealtime activity called “Speed Friendship.” We ask a question and quickly find out more about whoever is at the table. Examples of questions we might ask are: · Favorite color to wear?
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Counsel of Equals
Dad and I had an important mentor who had helped with the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster as a consultant in the aftermath of the tragedy.
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Priceless Words
I found a letter from my Dad to Natalya, my oldest. (I know the proper way to write “my dad” is lowercase, but I think of my Dad as grander, more significant, and worthy of a capital D…
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Dogging Dogmatism Part 2
Yesterday, I wrote about my Dad’s response to people aggressively purporting their beliefs. Dad’s navigation of dogmatism greatly influenced me.
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Absent-Minded Wisdom
I was traveling through the Denver airport recently when I noticed I was drinking from a bottle that wasn’t mine.
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Repair
Dad and I had many conversations about the attraction to cut-off relationships by not speaking to someone or vilifying others, a tendency to build up resentment. A situation recently arose between a few people I know.
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Giving Hope
I heard from two people last week that Dad’s “Words of Hope” book brought people comfort. One person gave the book to a family who lost a teenage son to suicide.
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Confident and Compassionate Disagreement
Shann and I recently discussed how family issues become more difficult because many fear disagreements and conflicts. We have very few examples of people navigating disputes with health and compassion.
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Relational Laziness
Dad worked on relationships. Scott Peck, who wrote a bestselling book, “The Road Less Travelled,” discussed how laziness, in his opinion, is the biggest obstacle to love. I see that in my life.
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Minor Adjustments
Dad loved unity, and he didn’t like disagreement. He also was a fierce competitor. Our family could get into heated disputes around politics, news, or even card games.
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An Elegant Question
Dad taught our family that we cheat the forgiveness asking process when we fail to resolve our conflicts or disagreements using language that does not address adequate resolution.
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Great People Talk About Ideas
Our family likes meaningful conversation. Years ago, we heard the quote, great people talk about ideas, mediocre people talk about things, and small people talk about others. Wow! What a great model for daily family conversation.
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Learning to Forgive
Dad and I often talked about bitterness and the drive to live in fracture with others. It’s incredible how generational resentment perpetuates—mother cut off from daughter, father from son. Forgiveness is a challenging and noble task.
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Building a Loving Home
When Shann and I had three daughters, we imagined a home full of love and joy for one another. How could we make this dream a reality?
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A Barometer of Health
Dad believed one of the most telling ways for us to observe if we love well was to examine the quality of our relationships. Relationships reveal how we love one another.
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The Negative Spiral
One of my favorite times with Dad was to discuss poor coaching or poor parenting as they share similarities. Dad had incredible insights into how we contribute to the unconscious dissolution of a team or family.
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In the Beginning Was the Word
Shann taught poetry at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center for Contemplative Leadership. He discussed the power of words. How much power does a word hold? The power to silence, to encourage, to destroy, to heal. In Ursula K.
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Only Seven Seconds
Shann and Bella had a late-night this week, and I was alone in the house for the first time in a while. I sat on the couch watching the sunset.
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Atypical marriage
One quality I admire about my Dad is that he did not speak poorly or negatively about my Mom. He worked hard to root out criticism. He believed that criticism is poison to relationships.
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The Gift of Friendship
Shann has a beautiful coffee table book that just came out on Amazon in collaboration with his artist friend, Craig Hergert.
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Fear of Being Taken In
Years ago, one of our dear friends had a church interview to lead a small group, and it had a level of harshness that surprised us all.
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Small Whisper
This was my first birthday without my Dad with me in person. Birthdays always involved dinner together with a beautiful mealtime conversation.
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Absurd or Obedient
Shann wrote the lyrics for an opera. I love to think about this. He is a poet, a researcher, a novelist, and a librettist (opera writer).
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Spotlight
We spotlight every meal, and it can be challenging to find new and meaningful ways to spotlight others.
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Loving Father
My brother called last week. I picked up the phone and heard a choking cry. I panicked. “What’s wrong?!” I said. Jay wept hard into the phone, “I miss Dad.” We cried together for a while.
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Oyster Mouth
Dad and I both struggle with our mouths sometimes. Dad said things he should not say. I would get so frustrated with him when he would do this.
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Honest Love
In an earlier Words of Hope, I shared a message Dad asked me to consider in the year of 2018. We had a relationship where we could ask things of each other.
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Encouragement is Oxygen
At camp, my Dad struggled to help student-athletes understand the necessity of encouragement. Then he compared it to oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for life; the same is true of encouragement.
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Poetry
I wouldn’t say Dad loved poetry when he was younger, but he definitely grew to love poetry. We both found poetry more and more beautiful after knowing my husband, Shann.
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Bedtime stories
Dad was a magnificent storyteller. He could mesmerize audiences at camp with stories of Challenger, our big black lab, or make everyone howl with laughter by a funny face or a silly expression. Dad loved stories.
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The Sin of Criticism
Last December, Dad and I read sections of “The Violence Within” by Paul Tournier aloud to each other. Tournier believed that criticism was a form of violence that burdened the relationship.
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Dad’s Voice
I asked my Mom what the most challenging part of her journey right now was, and she paused for a minute and then said, “Not hearing his voice.
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The Gift of Mentoring
My Dad believed in the intentional work of mentoring. Many of you reading Words of Hope are testimonies of Dad’s investment in your life. My husband, Shann, is a perfect example of Dad’s mentoring vision.
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Focused Feelings
Dad didn’t like it when I asked him how he felt. He instead preferred me to ask what he was learning from God or what he wrote about in Words of Hope.
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A Loving Dad
A few days after Dad died, my friend sent me a loving text and ended with: You won the “Dad of the century” award.
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Letters of Love
I opened Dad’s desk recently and found hundreds of random note cards. Some were covered in images of nature; others were blank white cards or cards printed with words like thank you or I love you.
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Mealtime Conversation
Our family created a ritual around mealtime conversation. This ritual refined through the years, but it emerged from my Dad’s quote he often used, “Great people talk about ideas, mediocre people talk about things, and small people talk…
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Overflowing with Thankfulness
Dad liked to use a jar illustration to help people diagnose the quality of their thoughts and words. Picture a large glass jar in which you can inspect all the contents.
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The Need to be Seen
My Dad noticed people that many do not—people mopping floors, or bussing tables, people who were often unseen or unrecognized. He treated everyone he met as a miracle with infinite value.
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Little Things
One of Dad’s favorite sayings was, “Yard by yard, life is hard, but inch by inch, life’s a cinch.” Dad would often counsel me on a project that felt overwhelming to take one step at a time.
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Stay in Your Lane
Yes, Fred Crowell loves to drive a car! And the better the car, the better I love driving! And how fun it is to drive on a multi-lane highway!
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The Language of Hope
In hopes to offset today’s primarily angry, harsh, rhetorical, judgmental language. The language of Hope seems like an excellent alternative.
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What’s up People?
Here I sit in my easy chair, at 4 AM, wondering about life. How is it possible, so many diverse thoughts roam through my brain like a river flowing over rocks?
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Immutable Laws of the Universe
No reasonable person can dispute there are immutable, unchanging laws that govern our lives. There is no escape from them. One such law is the Law of Expectations .
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Watching People with Wisdom, Part 1
People-watching is fun, entertaining and a valuable source of learning. A wise spiritual and life educator taught his students to master three people-watching skills. WATCH THE PERSON .
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Kindness
Just one act of KINDNESS can change a life forever. It is a type of behavior marked by favorable acts of generosity, consideration, and concern. What might some of these be?
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Walk Circumspectly with Wisdom
The idea of walking with 360-degree vision seems absurd, yet this is a Biblical challenge. Dr. Thomas Jones told 120 truly good kids at an NBC-Alaska basketball camp there are three ways to listen .
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Will and What?
Two extremely important, yet uncommon questions that bring relational healing. Will you forgive me for; now call the offense by name.
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Story Collisions
The tendency is to believe the first story told and forget there are two sides to every story. The late Dr.
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Oxicourage
Today is Day 57 in our 2021 Words of Hope. May I politely ask a favor of you? I really need your help. This is so you, in turn, will help others.
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Encouragement Is Like Oxygen
Every life form is starving for a drop of encouragement. Some examples: The cactus in Arizona cries for just one drop of moisture.
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Personal Letters & Delicious Omelets
Dear FRIDAY WITH FRED Friends, Today’s communication is to lift your spirit and inspire you to positive caring, life-giving, yet enjoyable actions. Personally, one of my delightful actions is reading and writing letters .
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A Written Letter
A WRITTEN LETTER can be an effective way to communicate. Francis Bacon said: “Reading makes us full, speaking makes us prepared, and writing makes us exact.” A letter is from one person to others to be read.
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The Truth About Truth and Lies
Truth is what we need to hear, a lie is what we want to hear. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
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Listen Well
6 WAYS TO BE A BETTER LISTENER LEARN – Listen with the purpose to learn, not be quick to tell what you know.
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DON’T NEVER STOP – Positive Force Statement
Don’t never stop being HOPEFUL Don’t never stop being kind & cheerful Don’t never stop loving life and people Don’t never stop loving the Lord with mind heart and soul The use of a double negative is done…
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Grateful for Gifts
Once in a while, I question why I find such joyful delight when I receive a grateful expression.
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Help Me Paradox
My years of counseling have taught me it is nearly impossible to help others unless they sincerely say ‘HELP ME!” This kind of help is to advise, give counsel, regarding a problem.
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Love Hurting People
The customary “How are you doing” greeting continues to receive the same casual responses of either “Good,” “fine,” or “ok.” Yet, today there may be a big difference when those replies are given.
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THE WORD — Learn it, speak it, obey it!
What is a word? It is a revealer, a messenger; it can also be a unit of a spoken or written expression.
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The One Amazing Encourage Tool: The Personal Letter
In life experience laboratories, human condition scientists search to find new methods to educate people to live at maximum potential. Their one mystery question is: HOW DO WE BEST MOTIVATE HUMANITY?
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The Power of Personalized Letters
One of the most powerful ways to inspire and encourage someone is a personal letter. This is because written words can be reread and encouraged again. Therefore, they are magical.
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Chreia-pithy Education
KEY STATEMENT. To encourage someone is to give them oxygen. 12-year-old Bella Crowell Ferch gives us an education on what 6 graders are learning at the Oaks Classical Christian Academy.
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Two Pounds of Hope
Have you ever held two pounds of HOPE in your hands? With today’s many worldwide problems housed in nearly every human life on this planet, two pounds of HOPE has the potential to lift the human spirit to…
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May I Please Have My Opinion?
In today’s national crisis, everyone seems to want to express their opinion. Have you noticed this? Even all the pro athletes.
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People Are Like a Loaf of Bread
Bread has been on my mind. As a boy, mom’s homemade bread was worth dying for. Then, for many years my wife had Mondays as her homemade bread day.
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Thank God It’s Friday
We build our personal world within the global world with the words that proceed from our mouths. So, if words matter as I believe they do, perhaps the idiom TGIF is not a great thing.
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Living in the Moment
I am sure you have discovered, as I have these past years, that having a fulfilling profession, a joyful marriage, doing daily exercises, and staying away from diet no-no’s can all be difficult.
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Messenger – Messages
“If people accept the message, they will embrace the messenger. If people reject the message, they will reject the messenger.” -S.
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Dry up! Game On!
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I’m reminded of a time when my fourth graders were playing for the city championship.
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Walk It, Don’t Talk It
“If you know it and you don’t do it, you don’t know it.” – Mike Nilson The Apostle James short book on walking your talk reminds me of a college basketball game.
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Van Gogh – Loving People
Some amazing quotes by one of my favorite artists: “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” “Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and…
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Willing to Negotiate
“Never fear to negotiate and never negotiate in fear.” JFK 1960 Inaugural Address. Rhetoric is the skill to clearly present in the written or spoken word, your philosophy, opinions, ideas and points of view.
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Truth Truism
Tell me, promotes learning – I know, stops learning. The other day at the Oncology clinic several of us were in a conversation.
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Forgiveness Reality
Forgiveness asking is one of the world’s most important, yet least understood and practiced success principles. What makes it so difficult to ask forgiveness?
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Encouragement Is Oxygen II
You can become a true game-changer, someone who makes a big difference. How? By the word ENCOURAGEMENT . Encouragement is giving another person confidence, support, hope, motivation, strength, comfort. E ncouraging words can make a difference .
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The Golden Mouth One
A monk living the aesthetic life for 12 years in the deserts of Syria was assigned to be the Bishop of Constantinople , the leading city of the world earlier in the 14th century BC.
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Life Lesson 101
Be quick to listen – slow to speak – slow to anger. These 3 life skills are as important as a carpenter’s hammer, power saw and measuring tape.
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I Just Called to Tell You
Stevie Wonder made famous the song, I Just Called To Say I Love You with the popular lyrics, “I just called to say I love you; I just called to say how much I care.” How does it…
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LIFEBALL – Wanna Play?
By far the most beneficial game ever invented in my opinion. Dr. James Naismith invented basketball to give children something to do during cold Massachusetts’s winters with the hope of developing Christian virtue and character.
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Intent vs. Impact
A well-developed EQ is evident when one knows and understands that intent must ultimately be measured by its impact.
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Five Life Giving Syllables
1. Will 2. You 3. For 4. Give 5. Me 75 years of life experience confirm to me that “will you forgive me” are the four most difficult words for people to say to those that have done…
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Your Eternal Impact
Questions: What impacts a person the most? What lasts the longest in a person’s life? The answers may well be different for each person.
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Shut up Mode
Key Statement: It’s so simple, yet so hard to do; open ears and mouth shut! Three keys: Slow to speak Quick to listen Slow to anger Telling people to shut up is not acceptable in the Crowell household.…
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Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
An apocalypse usually leads to a catastrophic event. Dr. John Gottman speaks of four horsemen as metaphors for the destruction of a relationship, especially a marital one. His four horsemen are criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness.
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Too Late May Be a Tragedy
“I love you Mom!” Oh, how I wish I would have told Katheen Mitchell Crowell these four simple words before her death. However, speaking love was not in our family’s vocabulary. It was not spoken…ever.
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Words and the Word
Webster defines Word as a “Single, distinct meaningful element of speech or writing used with other words or sometimes alone to form a sentence.” Words fascinate me.
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Hope – to Help Others!
In my mid-20’s during a powerful training session, a respected leader presented a strong case that words matter . It was then my philosophical and psychological views dramatically changed.
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DIAGNOSIS – Ask WHAT not WHY
The first step in problem-solving. Unless you can diagnose the problem it is impossible to fix the problem.
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Start Stop Rule
Chances are if you tell someone to stop doing something, there will be an instinctive resistance. By nature, we resist correction and do not like to be told “No.” True?
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Don’t Hurry – Be Quick
On the basketball court quickness is one of the most important athletic skills. Your quickness in athletics often determines what level of play you can achieve.
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Extreme Dislike or Strong Distrust, Part III
To me, desperate times need our desperate action . It seems possible when we righteously hate something evil, we gain power and energy to fight the enemy.
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Extreme Dislike or Strong Distrust, Part I
After preparing the WOH suicide video entitled Why I Hate Suicide , I received the following email from a lovely lady and a mother of one of my finest NBC coaches: “Hi, Mr. Fred. I hear you!
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Effective Parenting Part 1 – Three Master Keys
Crowell’s Life Skills for Effective Parenting by Fred Crowell The Difference: A Relentless Pursuit of Excellence The difference between poor and good; good and great; great and excellence is a “never quit” mind set.
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Cup of Joy Overflowing, Part II
If you could ask one request and receive it from God, what would it be? A million bucks? World peace? Cure for cancer? What would it be?
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Encouragement Is Oxygen
Pictured Above: Miracle Hanson ladies from Bristol Bay Alaska. No more worthy cause than investing in our future leaders! When you need encouragement give oxygen to others! Then you get encouraged.
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Shout Outs
Everyone delights in and appreciates an encouraging thank you shout out. Alaska Airlines deserves a Fred Crowell – NBC Camps shoutout .
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Good Brag Bad Brag
So vividly the memory of a bad brag rests in my memory bank. It was my 9th-grade year; basketball was the brag.
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Thank You’s Are Noble
Saying “thank you” is a noble yet often neglected statement after an act of kindness.
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Oxygen Is Encouragement – Encouragement Is Oxygen
Both oxygen and encouragement cure disease and negativity. Lack of oxygen and encouragement create poor physical, mental, and spiritual health. One of the most amazing women living today, in Dillingham, Alaska, was transported to Anchorage.
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What’s in a name?
Consider words like power, vision, confidence, courage, fearlessness, focus, purpose, destiny. We feel strengthened with words like these. Conversely, words can promote negativity as well and often these labels can impact behavior for a lifetime.
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Thailand Encouragement
KEY STATEMENT: encouragement is oxygen; encouragement is water. Without encouragement and water the human body cannot survive. Without encouragement, humans cannot thrive. NBC Thailand was founded by an amazing man. His name is Diego Sierra.
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Look at Me, Boys!
Key Statement: You listen with your eyes. What you don’t see is often more important than what you can see. True Story: 10:30 PM, dark, bitter cold, winter night. Anacortes, Washington.
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Too Busy or Don’t Care
Key Statement: If you are too busy or don’t care enough to spend quality time, without any distractions, with a spouse, a child, a dear friend, or a person in need you care about, the true fact is…
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Two Worlds
“Boy, we live in two different worlds and we both are extremely happy.” -Long Time Friend As I read this email from a former classmate I began to reflect on the idea of people living in two different…
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God’s Grading System
“Teachers first instruct, then examine you. God examines you, then instructs you.” In the winter of 1966, I said, “Yes.” After months of deliberation, I made the profound decision to ask the Lord Jesus Christ into my life…
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Words Matter
“People create their world by the words of their mouths.” – F Crowell Life experiences are the best teachers if we pay attention to them. Today I went to Mass aboard the MS Rotterdam.
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SUICIDE is like a GHOST KILLER
“I never saw it coming. He was the last person I ever thought would take his life.” – Very close friend Silently, quietly, the Ghost of Suicide slithers here and there striking with a vengeance that leaves it’s…
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Words of Hope
The story of Daily Words of Hope The story begins at the University of Idaho. One of my roommates received letters and care packages with goodies weekly. The joy these gifts brought Vern was obvious.
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Five Life Changing Words
“I am proud of you!” As Edith steps down the stairs in a beautiful wedding dress, Lord Gratham’s loving eyes and outstretched arms greet his lovely daughter.
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NO!!! no, no, no.
At the Crowell’s there is a big difference between NO! and no, no, no. Early in my teaching and coaching career, the following story impacted me.
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The Power of Silence
My professor early this quiet 5 am Saturday morning, Matthew, the former IRS agent (smile), records the Lords final encounter with Pilate. Pilate asks, “ARE YOU KING OF THE JEWS?
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Worm Tongue
On average we speak 1300 words a minute each day of our lives. What are we telling ourselves? We better be careful of the worm tongue.
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Depression Is a Ghost
“The difference between a ghost and depression is one is imagination the other is for real.” – F. Crowell Depression is real! Depression is devastating! Depression at its worst renders its victim helpless to make good decisions.
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You Just Got Crowelled
Scott Rueck, sensational women’s basketball coach at Oregon State coined “ Got Crowelled .” Scott was a master coach at an NBC Camp in Hawaii a few years ago.
