How to Train for War or Marriage or Anything Else
How to Train for War or Marriage or Anything Else
The remote, proximate, and immediate path toward readiness
Must we wait until adversity strikes to get ready for it?
What if preparing oneself for life’s biggest challenges begins when you’re a child, perhaps even when you’re a baby?
In many ways, we humans are built for adaptability and resilience, and we’re forced to deal with hardship quickly. We’re born far more premature than most others in the animal kingdom. Many animals can stand and walk immediately after birth.
We humans—in contrast to horses, giraffes, and many others—face a special struggle to develop physically, mentally, and socially from the day we’re born. Those early experiences also shape our character and values and perspectives on the world, giving us tools with which to face that which lies ahead.
That doesn’t mean you can’t do things when you’re an adolescent or adult to prepare yourself for life’s challenges, of course. It also doesn’t mean that you’re out of luck if your family of origin didn’t foster an environment conducive to healthy development. But it does suggest that there’s something deep and foundational about forming a resilient psychological orientation and will.
This idea seems to hold across many domains of adversity, from relationships to war, from financial hardship to parenting. And one way to think about it comes from how Saint Pope John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic church from 1978 to 2005, wrote about the family and marriage in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio.
In that document, John Paul II states that marriage preparation comes in three stages: remote, proximate, and immediate. Such stages seem to make sense regarding marriage, but I also find the idea of these three stages of preparation useful across a wide variety of other domains.
Let’s focus first on marriage given John Paul II’s original intent. At the same time, let’s hold the thought of how these ideas might apply to life more broadly. My point here is less to explore the nuances of marriage or preparation for it and more to use John Paul II’s three stages of preparation as a way to frame preparing for almost anything.
Remote Preparation
John Paul II takes the long view on marriage preparation. Namely, doing it right begins early. He writes:
Remote preparation begins in early childhood, in that wise family training which leads children to discover themselves as being endowed with a rich and complex psychology and with a particular personality with its own strengths and weaknesses. It is the period when esteem for all authentic human values is instilled, both in interpersonal and in social relationships, with all that this signifies for the formation of character, for the control and right use of one's inclinations, for the manner of regarding and meeting people of the opposite sex, and so on.
Functional families, John Paul II argues, help children understand themselves, their social environments, and how to navigate relationships. Such preparation, one could reasonably infer, includes both learning knowledge and skills explicitly and through the examples of others.
Parents might deliberately talk about or expose their children to ideas meant to shape their character and sense of what right “looks like.” They also, one could presume, demonstrate high-quality ways of interacting and communicating and dealing with conflict. Both intentional instruction and role modeling behaviors play a role in how children learn what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, and what’s worthy of aspiring toward.
Such preparation is often subtle, but it’s powerful.
Proximate Preparation
None of the remote preparation mentioned above depends upon whether or not a child actually plans to pursue the wild and wonderful ways of marriage. Yet it builds a foundation for the next preparatory stage, what John Paul II calls the “proximate” stage. In his words:
Upon this basis there will subsequently and gradually be built up the proximate preparation, which—from the suitable age and with adequate catechesis, as in a catechumenal process—involves a more specific preparation for the sacraments, as it were, a rediscovery of them. This renewed catechesis of young people and others preparing for Christian marriage is absolutely necessary in order that the sacrament may be celebrated and lived with the right moral and spiritual dispositions. The religious formation of young people should be integrated, at the right moment and in accordance with the various concrete requirements, with a preparation for life as a couple. This preparation will present marriage as an interpersonal relationship of a man and a woman that has to be continually developed, and it will encourage those concerned to study the nature of conjugal sexuality and responsible parenthood, with the essential medical and biological knowledge connected with it. It will also acquaint those concerned with correct methods for the education of children, and will assist them in gaining the basic requisites for well-ordered family life, such as stable work, sufficient financial resources, sensible administration, notions of housekeeping.
John Paul II obviously takes a Catholic view on marriage as a religious sacrament, something that far supersedes a legal contract. Within that context, notice how he urges for a set of deliberate instruction to help people know what marriage involves, how it engages the whole of one’s person, and the nuts and bolts of the basics.
Such preparation, built upon the foundation set in the remote preparation stage, provides a realistic preview of that which is to come while also giving people actionable knowledge and skills to help them succeed. It’s hard to argue with the wisdom of knowing a bit about stable employment, managing money, organization, meal preparation, cleaning, and more before getting married.
Immediate Preparation
Next comes the final stage, one that in the context of John Paul II’s conceptualization of marriage focuses largely on the spiritual aspects of preparation. He writes:
The immediate preparation for the celebration of the sacrament of Matrimony should take place in the months and weeks immediately preceding the wedding, so as to give a new meaning, content and form to the so-called premarital enquiry required by Canon Law. This preparation is not only necessary in every case, but is also more urgently needed for engaged couples that still manifest shortcomings or difficulties in Christian doctrine and practice.
Among the elements to be instilled in this journey of faith, which is similar to the catechumenate, there must also be a deeper knowledge of the mystery of Christ and the Church, of the meaning of grace and of the responsibility of Christian marriage, as well as preparation for taking an active and conscious part in the rites of the marriage liturgy.
The larger point I’m attempting to illuminate here is that preparing oneself for the big trials of life takes a variety of different forms across one’s lifetime. The remote stage sets the foundation, the proximate stage begins to develop specific sets of knowledge or skill, and the immediate stage ensures both the final practical matters are in order along with one’s spirit and mindset.
Furthermore, I’d argue that it’s possible to engage in all three stages at almost any point in our lives. We can continually build our resilience and character through learning and practice, build specific sets of knowledge and skill, and take immediate steps when facing a particular challenge.
What about war and other trials?
Let’s move from the rather specific topic of Catholic marriage to that of preparation for other types of hardship, for example, war.
Getting a human ready to engage in physical combat or other dangerous work on behalf of his or her nation is a big, complicated topic. Yet we can boil it down somewhat using the framework of remote, proximate, and immediate preparation.
Here goes.
Remote preparation for the future warrior, one could argue, begins in part with imbuing a certain set of ideals and values among the youth. These might include aspects regarding the value of service, building virtues through good habits, weathering adversity, and teamwork. Such preparation might increase one’s propensity to see military service as honorable work and increase the probability of pursuing it in earnest.
Proximate preparation could take the form of learning informally from people in one’s community with relevant experience, for example, military veterans in one’s family or circle of acquaintances. Such preparation also includes the formal training and education provided by the military itself. That training includes a wide array of behavioral expectations, norms, customs, and rituals along with military history, strategies, operations, and tactics.
Immediate preparation involves the logistics, final practical steps, and personal arrangements one might need to complete in order to deploy with a military unit. From my experience, some of this preparation has to do with refreshing one’s knowledge of various tactical matters related to one’s military mission, but it also has to do with getting one’s personal effects in order so they’re less of a distraction while you’re gone.
Statistically, more of you who are reading this are likely to get married than have to go through the process of preparing for war—at least I hope so. It’s guaranteed, however, that all of us will encounter various types of hardship and adversity in life.
Sometimes that adversity comes in a form that blindsides us, leaving no room for immediate preparation. We do, however, still have the ability in those instances to take immediate actions, even if it’s simply willing ourselves to choose our reactions.
Immediate preparation aside, I’d argue that we continually have the ability to conduct both remote and proximate preparation for general hardship in life. We can build our own strength through our connections with others and practicing virtue-building habits. We can be good role models for the younger generation, being a part of their remote preparation by showing them how to bear adversity and disappointment and suffering well. And we can provide proximate preparation by talking about better ways to handle the unexpected, by learning from both science and ancient wisdom, and by reaching out to those in need and being the Good Samaritan that we all need at various points in life.
If nothing else, the idea of these three stages of preparation gives me a sense of hope—and a sense of agency. Although we can’t control exactly what we might face, we can indeed do some work now to be ready.