Finding Leadville Chapter 3: Meeting God

The author (left) as a toddler with one of her 6 sisters

“Barbara,” the voice boomed.

I froze, mid-wail, my chubby baby cheeks wet with misery at being left alone to go to sleep,“ Barbara: This is God.”

My first memory. 

I was born midweek in Autumn to six siblings awaiting my arrival. My mother had already birthed four boys and two girls, making my entrance to the world, and the five babies to follow me, the norm.

Just over a year old, I developed a raised bump beneath and to the middle side of one of my eyes, at the bridge of my button nose.  My parents did what they could, taking me to specialists in Boston, a 90 minute drive from our home. I'm sure an early sense of patience was born as I got strapped into my booster seat and soared off down the highway toward another specialist, another appointment, the minutes trickling by. 

It resulted in a harmless mass of blood, an inflamed area that dissipates over time. And, in time, it did. I can hold the crinkle of photographs during that time and see the evolution of baby-with-a-bump into kindergartner-with-an-adorable-clear-face. 

My parents, avid Catholics, prayed over me. Got me blessed by priests, wiped holy oils over my troubled face. I believe I was given a special kind of attention during those early years. An attention my body would crave, ask for, in the many years to follow.

Like there, in the crib, as a toddler.

I was alone and I didn’t understand why. I needed to be held, to be loved, to have lips pressed against my cheeks, warm heartbeat of a chest I could lean into. 

Instead, I was alone in a crib, light piercing through the crack in the bedroom door –

“Barbara, no more crying.” It vibrated my little chest.  

Just as I sniffled enough oxygen to fuel the next bout of tears, the voice boomed again. 

“Barbara, this is God. No more crying. Go to sleep.” 

God. 

I hadn’t met him yet. 

My parents talked to me about this man. The man who was all-knowing. The man who knew when we were naughty and the man who had a son who died for all of us to live. The man who called the shots, knew what was right and what was wrong. If God was here, speaking to me, I had to listen, I just had to! 

The tears settled as I choked the naughtiness back inside of me. 

“Good girl. Go to sleep.”

It didn’t fully occur to me until junior high that I could question this world I was given.

It was science class. I sat in the back row, electric blue pumps on my feet, chipping away illegal-to-school nail polish on each hand. Sister Someone was at the front, donned in her gray habit, and telling the story of Creation or the adventurous trip of Moses or the shuffling that Noah had to do to get the animals on the ark. Whatever the story was, I didn’t like it. And so my teenage brain tested out how to share that. 

“Ughhhh,” a long exasperated sigh left my lips and I could feel the gurgle roll down my throat into the pit of my stomach. 

The room fell silent. Eyes turned to me and Sister’s small frame somehow rose tall at the front. 

“Do you have something to say, Miss Powell?

I avoided eye contact, staring down at my nails. Something must have made its way out of my mouth, some kind of comment that Bible stories don’t seem as true as she made them out to be. Whatever I said, it was naughty. I was back in that crib, I was back on the stairs waiting for a spanking – God or one of his spokespeople had to step in. I was out of line. Sister ordered me to the principal’s office. When ushered in, I plopped in front of another nun, higher up in power, and told through spitting eyes: “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

As my brain formed just enough to detect an identity – to shape opinions, thoughts, and ideas – I found rebellion. Like all teenagers do.

I repelled anything Catholic-related. In my teenage years, I abhorred the Church, I resented any of its teachings, and I rejected the strict path that it laid out for me. I didn’t accept a God that disallowed space to ask questions or the freedom to cry when I was in pain or the thrill of running with wild abandon.

This version of God was imprinted in me, quieting me, pressing me to acquiesce, to follow the rules and just go to sleep. A voice of control and a guidance away from the most feminine, charged, powerful parts of myself.

What about a God that delighted in my wild ways, that celebrated my thighs showing, rejoiced in my competitive thrills, and my ever-sideways, inquisitive brain? 

I would wrestle with my relationship with the divine over the years. When one is pressed underwater, mouth agape and unable to breathe, yet told the water is safe and necessary to live a good life, to just give in — one can let go or fight it. Many of us are told what God is or isn’t. Many of us might not question it. I have been questioning since that moment in the crib. I've chosen to fight it.

My version of God doesn't emerge from a power dynamic. It doesn't live in an organized religion or an ancient script. There's no shame storm that my version ignites or the pressing feeling of "less than" and subservience.

My version of God would slowly rise from the trails that I ran on. The kindness of coaches who supported me and the teammates who partnered with me. The winding wood path, trees bowing in reverence to the majesty of the wind. The throb of both pleasure and pain in my body. My version of God doesn't have a specific container for me to live in, to operate from. My version of God is female. Intuitive. Supportive. Compassionate. Healing and alive in all the world around me.

I’d meet my version of God out on the Colorado trails, over thirty years later. She'd follow me, everywhere, on the trails of the Leadville 100. She'd keep me safe and send me support when I needed it. She'd whisper in my ear, "I love you," no apologies necessary. I’d feel what it meant to be buoyant and free.

I realize now: The water is so expansive, so clear, and so blissful – I only had to float, to go with Her flow. No longer would I be held under tow, unable to breathe.

And then, when I was ready to float, I was ready to say yes to bigger, brighter dreams for me.

But floating did not come easy.

The author communing with her version of God: mid-run, in the canyons, in the elements, alive and well.