I would like to think that my actions were not driven by professional jealousy. Though professional jealousy is not beneath me, and I have had my share of it, I don’t think it is the culprit this time. What prompted me over the holidays to ask our son to help me set up a Twitter account was not in any way prompted by jealousy of Pope Benedict. You probably have heard by now that the Pope does indeed have a Twitter account. He has a gazillion followers on it. I think it is cool that he is tweeting.

However, I am not in the least bit jealous of that.

I asked my son for help because I do want to stay current with what is going on in this world. So, with his help, I am on Twitter under the name Wormy Davis (a high school nickname). The only problem now is that I have not tweeted one word. If I were to tweet, what in the world would I say that anyone might be interested in? I am not going to tweet about what I am wearing today (who would care?) nor am I going to tweet what is in my buggy at the grocery store (again, who would care?).

In a similar vein, I am on Facebook, but I post comments on it about once a year. Occasionally, I get on Facebook to catch up with who else is on it, but it is not a part of my everyday life.

My problem may be that I am just OD’d on words. We ministers, it seems, are always called on to “say a few words.” I preach sermons every week, preach funerals, weddings, do a weekly Bible study, and write a column. As we say in the South, “Dems lots of words.” It could be that I am not tweeting because the tweeter is just “plum tuckered out.”

I was youth minister of a church in Mississippi years ago. One day the preacher of the church told me to attend this funeral that he was preaching. So, I did. I didn’t know the deceased. After the funeral he told me to ride out to the cemetery with him (an odd request). I did. On the way to the cemetery, he dropped this little bomb on me. He said he had to leave and be somewhere else and so he wanted me to do the graveside service.

“You want me to do what?”

I had been to maybe two graveside services in my life. What does one say at the graveside? Like I said, I didn’t even know the deceased. Well, he was my boss, so I had no choice but to do it.

The pastor said to me, “Oh, you just stand at the head of the casket, read some scripture, ‘say a few words,’ and have a prayer.” I don’t remember what I said that day, but somehow I managed to “say a few words” about someone I didn’t know: “Here lies a good man.”

I am pretty good at “saying a few words,” with emphasis on a few. I’ve done funerals where two or three preachers were involved. The family asked the former pastors back and wanted them to “say a few words” at the funeral. Forty minutes later — and how many are a few?

I can show up anywhere — a Sunday school party or a committee meeting — and someone will say, “Well, preacher do you want to ‘say a few words’?” Ministers are good at it. The problem usually is limiting it to a few words.

If I am going to say something I would like for it to be meaningful. Recently Pope Benedict tweeted: “Without truth, without trust and love for what is truthful, there is no conscience or social responsibility…” Now those are meaningful words. Why couldn’t I say something like that?

OK, so maybe, I am a tad jealous after all.

Davis is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Carrollton.