Something has stuck with me from a few years ago relative to what a woman said while praying in church. In the prayer, she asked the Lord something like, “Please bless us to be careful in our choice of words, one with another…”

I thought it was a good thing to pray for on behalf of the congregation. The message to me was that we should all be more kind in our speech and try to communicate without being offensive.

I think it’s a good prayer for all of us – especially with all the differences in opinions and political situations that we’re living with these days.

I had a conversation with the prayer giving woman later and told her that I appreciated that part of her prayer. She said, “Oh, that’s nothing special. Saying the right things and choosing the right words is a problem I have and I’m always praying about it.” The way she responded and her attitude about it made me laugh.

Some people interpret our words as the “whole truth and nothing but the truth.” They allow us no margin of error. We don’t get the chance to modify or explain what we really were attempting to communicate.

The story has been told of a woman who got up and spoke during the “open mike” type portion of an LDS church “testimony meeting.” She and her family were new in the congregation and she thanked everyone for how welcome they had been made to feel.

The woman expressed gratitude for the help and hospitality they had received as they moved into the area. It was greatly appreciated especially because of her husband’s recent accident which had injured his scrotum. The pain and suffering, she explained, had been intense. People in the chapel, especially the men, squirmed in the pews in apparent empathy.

After sitting down, the woman’s husband went to the pulpit and began his testimony. He expressed love for his wife and thanked her for her words. But, as he did so, he emphasized, “I just want to be clear. That accident I had – injured my sternum.”

The likelihood of that being a genuine story is small. The tale is evidently told and repeated among many denominations and is most likely a fictitious joke.

If I offended any of you with that story, I’m sorry. What I’ve learned from some sources is that saying “I’m sorry” is not to be considered an apology. Expressing regret, without acknowledging wrongdoing, is not (by some definitions) an apology. So, here we go with words again.

Our choice of words is sometimes highly symbolic and people receiving the message attach deep significance to what we say and write – regardless of what we ourselves thought we meant.

Grudges are sometimes kept alive for years based on someone’s unfortunate choice of words. Attempting to express feelings at a critical moment is full of potential consequences.

Sometimes compliments just don’t come out right. An old classic: “You aren’t as dumb as everybody says you are.” Another: “I don’t know why everyone hates you and thinks you’re annoying. You seem okay to me.”

Choosing words carefully is important, but it can be taken to the extreme. I sometimes suffer from that “disease.” Some people accuse me of talking too slowly and of being too careful of what I am saying.

They encourage me with the command, “just spit it out for Pete’s sake!” (“Pete” in that sentence is an interchangeable word with other words.)

I guess I often live in accordance with a sign that some of you have seen before. It reads, “I’m multi-talented. I can do two things at once. I can talk and annoy you at the same time.”

If all goes as planned and paid for, I’ll be seated in the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy the night before the publication day of this column. I hope the plan works out. If the plan doesn’t work out and I’m not in my seat, I’m either sick or dead or some other catastrophe has befallen me.

I’ve been working on avoiding the “dead scenario.” I currently have a book out from the public library that I’ve been browsing through. It’s titled, “How Not to Die.” (Michael Greger, MD with Gene Stone – 2015)

I did some research to see if Dr. Greger was still alive. Wouldn’t that have been ironic if he had passed away by now? It appears that he’s still living, so that “not dying thing” is still working out for him. But, he’s only 53 years old – so there’s that.

Enough of that, I’m here to talk about words! I’m looking forward to the musical stage production of “My Fair Lady” at the theater. One of the songs in the classic musical is entitled, “Show Me.”

The character Eliza Dolittle sings, “Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!” Part of the importance of words is that if we say we’re going to do something, we need to follow up with action. Action makes the words legitimate.

In the song, Eliza is saying don’t talk of love. Show me love! “Don’t talk of June, Don’t talk of fall! Don’t talk at all! Show me!”

Here’s one more random thing about words which I heard on the radio recently. Dr. Seuss wrote the book “Green Eggs and Ham” as a result of a $50 (well over $500 in today’s value) bet with his publisher Bennett Cerf.

The publisher believed that Dr. Seuss couldn’t write a successful, engaging children’s book using a vocabulary of only 50 words. Dr. Seuss won the bet. The book was very successful. The only word in the book with more than one syllable is the word “anywhere.”

My hope is that we’ll all let my friend’s prayer reach our hearts. I hope we’ll all choose our words wisely. We need to be more tolerant and kind. We need to do what we say we’ll do. I hope we’ll give each other the benefit of the doubt. And, I hope that some of us will just be able to “spit it out.” — Merrill