Three Dimensions: A Review on Jonathan M. McCoy's Poetry Contemplation

Contemplation
Jonathan M. McCoy

As tears make slow tracks down my face,
I contemplate.
Does showing I care make me less of a man?

As my heart throbs with a piercing ache,
I contemplate.
Does my desire for love make me less of a man?

As I stare with burning eyes out into the dark of night,
I contemplate.
Does my quest for fulfillment make me less of a man?

Alone in my room I silently cry, craving love, needing answers, for daily I face my Gethsemane.
Abba! Father God!
The peace you bring to me.
Your arms encircle me, your love engulfs me, your spirit enriches me.
I contemplate and gain understanding -
Without you I'll never a man.

Three Dimensions

            This poem by Jonathan M. McCoy is actually a pile of questions and answers about the three dimensions of human life. The speaker is probably in his private times, meditating on his being in the world. The first one is about the spirit: ‘Does showing I care make me less of a man?’ The manifestation of caring is something that comes from the spirit. Animal can’t show their caring to their breeds because they have no spirit. The fondness that we see whenever an animal mother milks her children is an instinctive behavior. The need of caring and showing caring belong only to human, and sometimes those two needs are assumed as a girlish and traditional behavior. People nowadays have left this two expressive behavior and so as the result, they are searching challenging activities that can answer the search of true identity of life.

One step lower than caring is love, which appears in the second stanza: ‘Does my desire for love make me less of a man?’ The act of caring is in the area of the spirit, while the act of love is in the area of soul. When a person cares with another person, the feeling must have started from his soul. He feels the need of getting something from someone and then after a while, if the love is nurtured, then it can develop into caring which deals with a lot of giving. That’s why on the first stanza, the speaker asks about ‘showing I care’. Love is all about acquiring something, while caring is the quite opposite. The speaker is actually asking whether answering his soul need in life could make him less human.

The third stanza is focused on the area of body: ‘Does my quest for fulfillment make me less of a man?’ Body means the need of this worldly thing such as clothes, money, job, house, etc. These three questions are the things that the speaker is pondering about in his room. Then the man suddenly cries, ‘The peace you bring to me.’ This is the point where he got his answers from Abba (God). Line 14 explains that to be a real human, he must acknowledge and practice those three dimensions of human life. God Himself is formed with of arms (body), love (soul), and spirit. So when God creates human, He gives the same characteristics to human too (this is the meaning of the last line). This is the true identify of human. Human is not about caring only, or loving only, or flesh fulfillment only, but rather the combination of them all.

The final line may also have another interpretation. Since the first line, the speaker keeps on murmuring that about his state of contemplation. He’s not sure about himself and his whole being. So without God’s revelation in line 14, he would be still hanging on his questions and can never move on with his life because he doesn’t have the right understanding that he is human. The answer he got has truly made him a man who needs to satisfy his three dimensions of man.