Passion and fun.

These are the staples I try to utilize in this column every week.

Question my opinions, my outlook, even my writing ability. But give me one little bit of credit. I think I know my audience. I think I know you all, because I believe am one of you.

So I try to play off your love for soccer … with a sense of humor.

How else to explain the heated arguments we have over the Columbus Crew logo, the Tampa Bay Mutiny uniforms or the unpardonable sin of football lines on a soccer field? How else to explain so many of us losing sleep over the U.S. formation in Costa Rica, Kasey Keller's decision to be a backup at Tottenham or the U.S. Soccer Federation's decision to play the Open Cup final in Fullerton?

Passion and fun.

So, how can I write this column this week, with all that's going on? How can I get passionate over a game when three days ago, on my way to work, I looked down Fifth Avenue and saw the World Trade Center burst into flames? Who can laugh today when so many fathers, mothers, sons and daughters are unaccounted for?

How can I even get slightly worked up about the importance of the U.S. qualifying for the World Cup when a man who stood up in my church on Sunday, trying to recruit members to a Bible study, perished along with his wife, on United Flight 93, bound from Newark to San Francisco Tuesday morning?

I can't do it.

There's nothing wrong with getting passionate over sports, about feeling jubilant after a victory and hollow after a defeat. There's nothing wrong with getting angry at people who tell you to "get a life" when your entire reason for living at times seems connected to the bounce of a ball or the whistle of a referee. But it's also important to realize these emotions, the highs and the lows that sports give us on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis, are really nothing more than the sweets of our lives.

Some day, for sure, the game and all that surrounds it will be important to us again.

We'll get back to arguing.

We'll get back to laughing.

I'm just not sure when.

Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at jeff.bradley@espnmag.com.