“Be at War with your Vices, at Peace with your Neighbours, and let every New Year find you a better Man.” -Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s (1755)
I have often felt I was born 200 years too late, and the date on this piece of Ben Franklin’s advice only seems to strengthen that idea. I have been waging war on my vices most of my life. Learning to think about it as warfare has been a blessing. Seeing peace with my neighbor held in tension with my war on personal vice is likewise eye opening.
I am the judge that modern culture hates—and proud of it. Whatsoever I have not formed a judgment about, I will as soon as I encounter it. Willful ignorance and indifference infuriate me. They foster inaction, appeasement, and surrender. It is impossible to know right from wrong, truth from error, or vice from virtue without making a judgment. The decision to go to war rests squarely on personal judgment.
War is made up of battles. You may lose many battles on the way to winning the war. A disastrous defeat is cause for reflection, regrouping, and a new plan of attack. It is not the end. Neither is a brilliant victory the end. These are our vices we fight. Were they someone else’s vices, we would defeat them in a moment and be free. But they are ours. They are part of us.
Yes, we were born that way. Nevertheless, that is no reason to remain thus. We can be born again, a new creature. Even so, that creature is not without thorns in the flesh. Spiritual warfare is fought in the flesh and in the mind. It is not rhetorical or philosophical, it is blood and guts, do or die. I do not view the fact that I am still fighting after all these years as a failure. I see it as life in the flesh. War with my vices has an end. If I do not surrender, a relief column will come.
Only the particulars of my war are unique. War itself is common to every person and knowing this makes peace with my fellow warriors easier. Often times the peace is uneasy. There are times it would be easier on me to attack and fight. I admit sometimes I would rather fight. Nevertheless, peace is a duty we owe ourselves just as much as we owe it to others. We find it when we seek it in the things that make for peace.
Am I a better man? Better doesn’t cut it. Even the best among men is not without spot. It is enough for me that I’m still armed and marching to war.
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