You'd be forgiven if you don't know who Julia Hawkins is.
Full disclosure: I didn't either until today.
Julia Hawkins, who took up running after her 100th birthday, died this past week and was honored in obituaries that were printed in newspapers across the country.
Hawkins, of Baton Rouge, La., died at the age of 108, but not before she captured the imagination of people nationwide, especially the growing community of senior competitive runners.
Having never been a runner before, her sons signed her up to run the 50-meter dash at the Louisiana Senior Games in 2016, a race which she won, finishing in a time of 19 seconds. It does not matter that she won by default because she was the only competitor who was 100 years older.
Hawkins then was bitten by the running bug and continued to compete, participating in races across the country, setting world records in the 100-meter dash in the women-over-100 category in 2017, and in the over-105 age group in 2021. In fact, in that year, track officials were forced to create a brand new category for competitors over 105 years old that year, as this had never happened before.
Also, to her credit, Hawkins set American records in the over-100 category in the indoor shot put, the indoor 60-meter dash and the outdoor 100-meter dash, according to USA Track & Field Masters.
I’m a sucker for a fantastic obit, of course, as some of you may remember that I spent almost a decade building a media company that specialized in newspaper obituaries.
But I’m especially a sucker for those who figured out the secret sauce as to how to just wring out of life more than most of us ever will. Hawkins was one such person.
In my humble opinion, I think it is folks such as Hawkins who figure out how to tap into the Holy Spirit here in this world. Because I don’t know how else you explain such a Hollywood-esque sort of life.
Unfortunately, for so many of us, the daily grind of living clouds our ability to reach through that thin veil between this world and the world of the divine, also known as the heavenly kingdom. But I think people like Julia somehow defy the weight of this world to embrace the promises that God -- in the form of the Holy Spirit -- is indeed active right now, right and in reach of all of us.
If only we recognized this.
In 30 years of journalism, I was blessed to come across more than my fair share of people like Julia, and have the blessing of getting to write about them. People, whether through setting running records at the age of 100, or for various other reasons live lives who set themselves apart from the masses.
And since the start of this blog four years ago, I’ve also had the unique opportunity of many such folks who have made themselves known to me so that I could write about them.
Recently, of course, the common denominator of the folks reaching out has been that they are folks who consider themselves faithful people as well as having lived interesting lives.
I must confess that I don’t know if Julia Hawkins considered herself a person of faith. Her obituary never mentions this aspect of her life. But I don’t know that any public disclosure is important. Whether Hawkins considered herself a faithful person doesn’t preclude the fact that I clearly see the Holy Spirit in her.
Who knows, she may have considered something else the source of her own je ne sais quoi, but to my eye, it could only be the Holy Spirit!
How about you? What folks have you known who possessed an otherworldly -- or in my definition divine! -- countenance about them? What set them apart? How did they wring the juice out of this life so much better than the rest of us? What do you think they knew that the rest of us don’t?
I’d love to know! Please share your stories about the Julie Hawkins you have known in your life! … Amen.
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