Did You Have Fun? Soccer Haibun and Haiku

Soccer. Fussball. Futbol. The beautiful game. I started playing it my sophomore year in Nicolet High School, as a club sport, in gym and intramurals. I was on the BYU “C” team (you know: A, B, C) … or maybe the “Z” team … my freshman year, the same year a team I player/coached were crowned intramural champs.

In 1981 I started assisting coaching soccer in the Fond du Lac soccer league. With a few breaks, I continued assistant coaching nearly every year, especially in the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association. I also became a referee, as did my two oldest kids. I also played in the Eastside adult “Co-Wreck” league.

da Blues LWYSA girls youth soccer team, Kirkland, WA Sept 1999, Coach KuhnsEventually, I became a head coach of several recreational teams, especially of da Blues girls team and the Tarantulas boys team. Sometime around 2005 or so, I stopped coaching, as my youngest grew into Select and Premier soccer, but I always went to their games, including their high school games.

In about 2010 a group of guys I’d coached since they were little came up to me and asked me to coach them one last time, the fall season of their senior year, in recreational soccer. They said, basically, “soccer has gotten too intense. We’re not going to play in college. We just want to have fun again.”

It was rewarding they’d learned at least one lesson from me. After every game, win, lose or draw, I would always ask the kids I coached the same question:
“Did you have FUN?” They would (almost always) smile and say “Yes.” Then I’d tell them how proud I was of them, we’d do some goofy cheer, and we’d go get snacks.

The Next Generation of Soccer Parents

I haven’t coached for a few years, although I still go watch on occassion (#CFC #ChattanoogaFC #EBFG #SeattleSounders #BYUCougars)  and I own one share of the #ChattanoogaFootballClub (#CFCowner). Now I see the next generation of soccer parents (and, really, all sports parents) coming along. These are kids of the same generation that I coached. Just like I was, they are all so earnest and excited. They all want their kids to do well. So, even though they are not asking me, I want to share a major lesson I learned from all those years coaching soccer:

“Did your child have fun?”

Here’s the haiku to go along with it.

One truth all soccer/
parents must grasp: Playing is/
never disaster.

When Truth Is Revealed: Mission Statement ImproVerse Haibun

She and I often sit in the throes of great deep philosophical and spiritual discussions about our life and lives, about existence and our place in it, about the purpose and meaning of life and how we fit and what we should do. How can we best serve our fellow men and women? What does God want us to do and can we do it and how should we do it?

Often, the Spirit teaches us great and grand truths. We put our hands over our hearts and exclaim: WOW! This is true truth! This is real.” And we smile and we feel motivated and inspired and we keep talking and we keep learning.

When this happens, hopefully a notepad and a pen or pencil will be handy and we’ll write down the truths that the Spirit is teaching us and we’ll take direction and inspiration and plans and dreams and we’ll capture them. And we only look at back at them later and maybe we will say “Yes!This is a great thing, a great truth!” And we’ll print them and put them up on our walls and use them as benchmarks and inspiration to what we should do and how we are doing.

What is Unwritten Truth?

Many times, too often really, we don’t take the time to write down the truth we’re learning. Sometimes the truths come so quickly that we can barely keep up in our own minds what they are, as they lap over on each other and grow and intertwine and intermingle and we see the visions and rejoice in what God is teaching us. So we don’t write them down. And sometimes we’re just too lazy to go find that piece of paper and pencil. We think to ourselves: “We will write it down later. This is so fantastic and so deep and so rich we will never forget it.”

But we do. Then, those truths and those heartfelt visions fade, fade,  fade away and are lost unless or until God sees fit to reprimand us, and maybe remind us of what we should have captured the first time and done the first time.

Vanishing Taught Truths Haiku

Socrates discussed,/
taught, learned. Did those truths vanish,/
too, the way ours do?

Our Lighthouse And Port of Refuge In The Storm: Haibun

The South swelters with mid-summer heat, with no port of refuge to be seen. Heading from the tree-shaded lanes of UGA and Athens, we found ourselves getting even more roasted as we drove through Hotlanta’s asphalt and concrete EZ-Bake Oven. The sun looked and cooked our black ragtop. Full-blast air conditioning seemed to do little to help.

At last, the sun slid behind towering thunderheads, providing welcome relief as we headed northward, toward our home on the hill. For awhile, all was still (as much as it can be with trucks and pickups and rich folk taking their fast cars out for a run on I-75 northbound). Magnificent bolts of lightening raced across the northern sky, lengthening out the dusk with their searing white flashes.

Then, suddenly, 30 miles southeast of our port of refuge, our home on the hill, it hit. One moment, it was a few light splatters on the windshield. A shift in the humidity and temperature caused the windshield to fog up slightly. As my fingers races to turn dials and press buttons to change the airflow, God began throwing garbage pails of water from the now black sky.

Thankful For Semi-Trucks With Blinking Tail Lights

There was no way to pull to the shoulder, no port of refuge from the storm. We couldn’t go around it. We couldn’t stop. Like Frodo the Hobbit, we had to go through. Suddenly, I could see the flashing red tail lights of a semi-truck. Here, I knew, was safety. I’d driven behind them in Tule fog in California’s Central Valley, and between Denver and Salt Lake City in November blizzards. Both of those had visibility of less than 30 feet. Here, I could see more than 100 feet, to the truck, so I knew I was safe.

Marnie was not as experienced. As I drove at a reasonable, safe speed, following the blinking tail lights, she sought her own port of refuge by burying her face in her lap. My hands stayed at “10 and 2,” and I never wavered, even when other cars passed me. I’d had dozens of cars similarly pass me before, heading down into Sacramento on the Donner Pass, and into Seattle on the Snoqualamie Pass. Many had ended up in the ditch or off the side of the road, headlights pointing like searchlights into the stormy night sky.

I was in no hurry.

The Last Miles Are Often The Toughest

At last, our exit appeared. A small voice whispered “Go to the next one! It’s better lit and straighter.” I ignored it, in a hurry to get home. As we exited, we could see … nothing. The dozens of street lights, stoplights, fast-food restaurants usually lighting up the intersection had been knocked out. No matter. The rain has slowed to a mere drizzle, so I headed home on the back road I knew so well, off of Old Alabama Highway.

Less than two blocks into our road home, I saw cars turning around and heading back toward me. Gazing down the road, I could see a giant flood flowing over the road. I sighed. The small voice — as it usually is — had been right. I turned around and got back onto the freeway, heading to the next exit.

There the lights were on, everything looked wet but familiar, and I could finally start breathing a little slower. Slowly driving down slick, wet roads, we at last turned on our yellow dirt road that headed toward our hill. I relaxed a little, but only then realized my 10 and 2 hands were almost cramping from gripping the steering wheel so tightly.

The Lighthouse And Port Of Refuge On The Hill Surprise

I drove through the hickory, oak and cedar trees, up the hill and down the dirt road that is now so familiar to me. Suddenly, through a gap in the trees, our home appeared on the hill. Its front porch and upper bedroom lights blazed with a brightness that only air cleaned by the rain can bring. As I slowed the car to look, huge bolts of lightening from the storm we’d just gone through flashed behind the house.

It was as if the house was saying “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you. You are safe now, here.” I put the car in reverse and backed up a few feet, to where I could see our own lighthouse and port of refuge, lights blazing like a giant battleship. I gazed at it for a moment, relaxed completely, drove through one more pothole puddle, and parked.

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.

Home Again: Our Port of Refuge in the Storm (haiku)

Torrential rainstorm,/
light’ning, flooded roads. We see/
our house, lit. Harbor.*

or

our house, lit. Refuge.
10:19 pm August 13, 2019

From Hell To The Temple: Haiku

On a hotter than/
hell day, the Lord’s Temple is/
a good place to go.

OR
On a day that is/
hotter than hell, you can cool/
down in the Lord’s House.

Consider Opportunity Cost: Revolutionary Blogging Sonnet

When I consider
all that may be gained or lost,
I far too seldom
think of the opportunity cost.

Playing soccer or baseball
was never a bad thing,
but I never once asked
what eternal growth they’d bring.

I can think of many times
I went to play in the sun.
But the more valuable games
were those with more than just fun.

It’s the eternal things which must be considered and weighed
to decide if time is well spent, or just frittered away.

Based on a April 2019 General Conference talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks.