A Place of Refuge

When Anselm was 7 years old, his mother told him that God lived “on high.” This planted a desire deep within Anselm, who grew up in the shadow of the Italian Alps, to climb to the top of the mountain and meet God. 

One night, as Anselm slept, he dreamt that he took such a hike. Along the way, he met workers who claimed to be serving God, but who were for the most part lazy, irresponsible, and dishonest. (Anselm grew up in a very corrupt era in church history and he may already have picked up on that as a child.) Anselm made up his mind to tell God about these people when he arrived. 

When Anselm arrived at the top, however, he was so struck by God's glory that he forgot what he had come to say. He describes having a long conversation with God in which the Lord answered all his questions before feeding him with the whitest, warmest, most delicious bread he had ever tasted in his life. In the dream, God's presence was a place of refuge. Anselm never forgot that dream.

When Anselm was 12, his mother died, leaving him alone with his father, a violently abusive alcoholic. In his later writings, Anselm describes working hard to please his father to no avail. No matter how much he did, it was never enough. 

Finally, at 15, Anselm ran away from home. For the next five years, he wandered across Europe. There has never been a safe time for a teenager to run away, but 12th-century Europe was especially unsafe. Anselm was always at risk of being captured by a local land baron and forced to work the land as a serf. He learned to be light on his feet. 

Finally, at the age of 20, he ended up at the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, France. The abbot, Lanfranc, was one of the greatest scholars of his day, but as he spoke to Anselm, he realized that Anselm's intellect was greater than his own. He talked him into becoming a monk. Anselm began teaching young men and eventually wrote books.

Unlike most other teachers of the day, Anselm (perhaps influenced by his upbringing) refused to physically punish his students. When someone asked him why, he replied that men do not beat trees to get them to grow straight, and men are worth more than trees. His contemporaries noticed that his students were always engaged and eager to learn.

Anselm’s kindness toward his students extended to other living creatures. Once, when he was out on horseback with several other monks, a rabbit ran beneath his horse with two dogs in hot pursuit. The other monks began laughing at the rabbit's ridiculous attempt to hide from the dogs behind the legs of Anselm's horse. Anselm, who probably saw something of his homeless, teen-aged self in the quivering, frightened creature, was livid. He rebuked the monks, saying, "This creature has come to us for refuge, and you laugh at it. How many people come to us for refuge, and do you laugh at them as well?" 

Refuge is a theme that Anselm returns to often in his writings. He tried to be a place of refuge to his students, as the Abbey had been to  a homeless wanderer, as his mother had been to an abused child, and as the dream about the mountain had been to a 7-year-old growing up in the shadow of the Italian Alps.