By Lloyd Mackey

IN the 12th century, St. Francis of Assisi penned the much-loved prayer which includes these words: "O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love."

The request to seek not "to be understood as to understand" was included in a conversation at the Manning Centre's networking conference this past weekend.

To give the quote some context, without divulging the identities of the people who were part of the conversation, please bear with me for a moment.

The subject, at that particular point, was a recent conflict between a faith-based advocacy group and a government agency which had turned down funding for that particular group.

The speaker quoting St. Francis was trying to make the point that the advocacy group in question was more interested in getting its own viewpoint understood than it was in understanding the viewpoints of the people on the other side of the table.

In defence of that advocacy group, it might be suggested that the person quoting St. Francis was expressing a no-brainer. The job of an advocate is to make the subject of his or her advocacy understood. In practical terms, advocating for a cause is often critical to winning support for that same cause.

But my speaker friend who was interpreting St. Francis was exercising a different kind of thinking. He was putting forward the seemingly preposterous notion that an advocate should seek divine guidance in the quest of understanding an opposing viewpoint.

And, if an advocate can get his or her mind around that humility-based concept, it could go a long way toward the accomplishing of goals that come out of reasonable compromise.

Admittedly, advocates -- and their sometimes symbiotically-linked cousins, absolutists -- would find that difficult, particularly if their work and stances come out of a narcissistic mindset.

So, perhaps we can cut the advocates a little slack and proceed to some other faith-based happenings at the Manning conference.

One of the features of the conference was a presentation by pollster Alan Gregg of Harris/Decima (H/D) and Andre Turcotte of Carleton University. The two outlined a H/D survey -- paid for by the Manning Centre, and intended to provide what conference organizers described as some insights into "the state of conservative values in Canada."

Continue article >>

More extensive coverage of the survey results are available at www.theglobeandmail.com. The item can be searched for by using the term 'Manning centre survey.' Readers can peruse both the story that ran in The Globe and the slide show used by Turcotte and Gregg at the conference.

There were three parts to the survey. They provided insights into:

• Values typically associated with conservatives and how they are perceived by Canadians in general.
• Specific conservative policies, also showing how they are perceived by Canadians in general.
• How the political centre is becoming more conservative and the potential fault lines associated with this ideological shift.

The findings which made the stories in both The Globe and The Toronto Star took note of the conservative-leaning 13-year shift in Canada's political centre.

The survey looks at various kinds of conservatism -- moral, social, fiscal and libertarian. And it tries to give some sense of how various kinds of conservatives get along with each other - particularly those who would be "absolutists" on such issues as abortion or making government smaller, in relationship to those who would be more tolerant of diversity.

This is where the reference to St. Francis' prayer becomes relevant.

In attempting to provide responsible governance, any party in power will struggle between listening carefully and providing strong leadership.

And any credible opposition will struggle with the need to present itself as a better option than the government currently in power, while still "seeking to understand." Indeed, that struggle sometimes presents a challenge to oppositionists, as to when they should resist being simply a government in waiting and shift to being selectively and constructively supportive of the governing party.

Faith-based advocates and governors alike will try to learn the lessons that cause them to reflect understanding of a wide range of perspectives, rather than becoming trapped in narrow-minded, narcissistic mindsets.

At least, that is how it looks from here. But maybe I, too, should be asking God to help me better understand other perspectives.

Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

March 18/2010