King's Corner: Peekaboo

King's Corner column for April 4, 2025

One of the joys of being an adult is being able to play with young children. Have you ever looked an under-one-year-old child in the face, covered your face with your hands, and then suddenly swung open your hands and said “peekaboo!” to see them giggle and laugh?

When you play peekaboo with kids you’re teaching them something important in a fun way.

“Watch, I’m gone” (face covered by hands). “I’m back” (hands open to show face). “I’m gone. I’m back.”

When you have a young child, say a six month old, and you show them a toy on the table, and then you cover it with a napkin, they move on. They don’t realize it’s there anymore. They don’t have what’s called object permanence.

Object permanence is your mind’s ability to understand that things and people – person permanence – exist even when they’re not with you. Somewhere between seven and eleven months children gain object and person permanence. They discover that if they’re looking at a toy, and dad covers it up with a napkin, they can lift up the napkin and find the toy.

And when mom or dad goes “peekaboo” they’re saying “I’m gone. I’m back. I’m gone. I’m back. I always come back.” By playing, the baby’s exercising that muscle; they’re learning trust.

And that’s why it’s such a really important game to play with kids. And they love it. They learn that no one is tricking you or sneaking out on you. It makes you trust. It teaches you — you grow that muscle — that people still exist even when they go away.

As adults, knowing that something — like respect, appreciation, and affection — exists even when you can't sense these is an important lesson. Many of us need all sorts of reassurance on a regular basis; we need faith. What is faith? “The complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”

My dad, Mark King, at 13 years of age was earning money doing combine harvesting in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. He made friends with Ken in the combine crew who also worked in rodeos. Ken offered to teach him how to be a rodeo hazer – a crucial support role for anyone trying to wrestle a steer.

A hazer is someone who keeps the cow or bull close to the horse of the rider — the bulldogger — coming up on the other side to jump on the bull and grab his horns. “While I’m bulldogging you ride another horse to keep the steer close to me so I can jump on him” said Ken. They then started working rodeos from Texas to the Canadian border.

A good hazing horse makes or breaks a good bulldogging horse, and your bulldogging horse is only as good as your hazing horse. Once the bulldogger nods his head for the steer to be released, the hazer rockets his horse out of the box and bookends the steer to keep it in line for the steer wrestler to catch and throw. It's a crucial role, and the hardest job there. A good hazer and hazing horse can mean the difference between a bulldogger winning or losing a round or a rodeo.

The bulldogger has to have absolute faith and trust in his hazer, the way Ken had with Mark.

They worked many rodeos to get enough points to end up at the grand rodeo, which was held in Oklahoma. Then the “Days of ‘76” or “Calgary Stampede” rodeo in Calgary was the biggest of all, and they entered it. They shared their winnings right up to the point where Ken got hurt and needed to withdraw.

In all of life we need someone we can have faith in, that we can trust, to help us take on the risky adventures that lay before us, to enable us to strive for all that we’re capable of being. Someone we know will be there even when we can’t always see. Someone who’s permanent, who’s at our side even in the wildest and roughest moments.

We need child-like faith.

Faith takes courage, but it’s a very humble quality, which is perhaps why it is associated with childlikeness. We need to be able to trust someone we can’t always see, but who is always there with us and alongside us. Someone who is our hazer in life.

We need to play peekaboo with God.

In the Bible, when Jesus' disciples asked who was closest to him, he responded by taking a small child to His side and saying that the least among them was the greatest. The faith God looks for is humble, teachable, and trusting—like a child. “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Are you ready to trust someone who’s always there with you, and wants the best for you? Are you ready to exercise your muscle of faith and trust? Are you ready to play peekaboo with God?