For Karl Barth, the eye, the ear and the mouth are symbols of our co-humanity. We are persons, that is, c0-humans, when we can look the other in the eye, when we hear the other, and when we speak to the other. Most importantly, he adds, it is when we do all this gladly. Contemporary culture seems to define humanity differently. The eye becomes a means of detached voyeurism and its primary object is itself – the fascination with self-discovery. The ear listens to one’s needs and the mouth becomes the means of satisfying one’s appetites, those tastes , those predilections that the ear determines. But we don’t do this gladly, we do it desperately . . . because time is short.
Dr. Alan Torrance quoted in Volume 2 of letters of faith through the seasons, edited by James M. Houston, p. 166-167
