Editor’s note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Derrick Porter each Sunday during the weekly Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square broadcast. This will be given Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. This week is No. 5,010 of the broadcast.
One hundred fifty years ago, the Tabernacle here in Salt Lake City was dedicated as a house of prayer, a house of praise and a house of thanksgiving (see “The New Tabernacle Dedicatory Prayer,” Deseret News, Oct. 20, 1875, p. 594).
Since that prayer in 1875, this great Tabernacle has hosted thousands of events to help people connect with the Divine. For more than a century, people have gathered inside this building, at times 10,000 strong, to hear songs of hope and messages that inspire.
One such event occurred back in 1941. The speaker that day was Helen Keller. It was unimaginable that an individual with her challenges — she was deaf and blind — could speak and interact with an audience of thousands. Helen learned to see and hear, in a sense, by using the finesse of her fingers. She learned to pronounce words that she could not hear by feeling the vibrations of another’s voice with her fingers and then mimicking those vibrations with her own vocal cords.
To the audience she described the flowers she had received and how she had seen with her hands the relics of pioneer days as she toured the state capitol. Helen then invited Utah Gov. Herbert Maw to ask her any question he desired. She placed her fingers on his nose, lips and throat, feeling the muscles and vibrations as he spoke. The question: “If you had one wish granted, what would it be?” Her response: “World peace and brotherhood.”
Helen shared that while she was “inexpressibly grieved by the present world conflict,” she still believed in “the power of God to eventually achieve His divine wish for ‘peace on earth, good will among men.’” (See “Helen Keller Stirs Vast Salt Lake Audience,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 1941, page 17, newspapers.com.)
That day, the power of God was evident as all in attendance witnessed a personal miracle many years in the making: a deaf and blind woman communicating with thousands — hearing and seeing through her fingers and declaring with spoken words her faith in God’s power.
That’s what this Tabernacle was built for — to share and to testify of the power of God. It was built to be a house of prayer, a house of praise and a house of thanksgiving. May its voice, like Helen Keller’s wish, carry peace and brotherhood to generations yet to come.
Tuning in …
The “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast is available on KSL-TV, KSL News Radio 1160AM/102.7FM, KSL.com, BYUtv, BYUradio, Dish and DirecTV, SiriusXM (Ch. 143), tabernaclechoir.org, youtube.com/TheTabernacleChoir and Amazon Alexa (must enable skill). The program is aired live on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time on these outlets. Look up broadcast information by state and city at musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules.
