Finally, St. John says “ It (the spirit) stands in the center of its own humility.” What does St John mean when he says the spirit stands in the center of its own humility. The key to understanding this is to understand what he means by humility. Humility gets at the truthful relationship between the human person and God. And the truth is that we humans are totally and utterly dependent on God for everything and in every way. God created us, gave us life, and provides for all our needs, including oxygen, food, clothes and shelter. Jesus was talking about this relationship when he said, “ I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me, and I in him will produce abundantly, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5. We will explore this entire passage later.) Jesus is making it clear here that we are in a complete dependency relationship with Him. If we remain in Jesus (by keeping his commandments, especially his commandment to love God and neighbor) we will live a fruitful and truly joyful life. If we willfully cut ourselves off from Jesus by purposely going against the will of God, we can do nothing “except wither and die.

All of this is getting at the deep mystery that is our “true self.” Earlier we discussed at length our “false self” represented by the deepest roots of the weed. In a similar way, the deep truths contained in the “true self” is represented by the deepest roots of the flower, thereby anchoring us firmly in the wonderful, heavenly world of the flower. We will delve more deeply into the mystery of our “true self” when we look more deeply into the “vine and branches discourse later.

For now it will suffice to understand that we are organically connected to God in a complete dependency relationship. This happens to be very good news indeed, because it means we are dependent on a God who is totally loving and totally powerful, who has promised to provide all that we need. We can all take a sigh of relief because our problems are over (if we are able to completely believe this great truth)

We can now understand St. John’s final sentence, “It (the spirit) stands in the center of its own humility.” The spirit stands in the center of the great truth that it is completely and totally dependent on a totally loving and powerful God, who will provide all that it needs. Believing this truth with complete faith and trust, the spirit can not possibly have an excessive desire, or coveting, for anything in the world because it knows it will receive from God all that it needs. Freed from all attachments by this great truth, the spirit is not wearied by either elation or dejection, and simply rests in God’s peace.

This is the truth that Valerie and John stumbled upon when they heard Jesus’ words from MT 6:19. And this truth freed them from their attachment to financial security, which had arisen from the lie that only John provided for the family. Once they believed Jesus’ truth that it is actually God who was providing for them (through John’s efforts at the moment), that truth showed up their prior thinking to be the lie that it was. Once they were rooted in God’s truth their attachment dropped away, as wee as the worry that was caused by the attachment, and their worry changed to peace.

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