Here I stand, bare feet on ancient stone. Looking down at the water…
How did I get here?
It’s 3am in Tsfat, Israel. Dark outside. Full moon over the 4,000 year-old graveyard behind me…
I was on the way home to California from a business trip in London.
As if by an unseen hand, I was led out of my well-worn hotel room and down the switchbacks to this holiest of places in this holiest of cities. Yitzak Luria‘s Mikveh.
I feel like Indiana Jones, except there is no khaki or wide-brimmed hat…I am as naked as the day I was born, no barrier, coram Deo. Even my watch and wedding ring have been taken off.
Just me. Just God. Just now.
My name, David, which never made much sense to me, seems oddly right for, perhaps, the first time ever. I have cultivated nicknames all my life. I think of the double delta of David’s monogram…
I think back over the last 48 hours here in Galilee.
Invited into the back rooms of synagogues…
Rabbis pointing through the texts of “secret books” in Hebrew and asking questions….
- How did you learn Hebrew?
- Your name is David, are you sure you aren’t Jewish? You look Russian…
- Where do you sense the presence of God here in Tsfat? Where is that feeling the strongest?
- What are you doing here?
I did not choose to stand here. I’m not even sure what a mikveh is…I was led here…
I need answers to three questions. Just two days ago, I wrote those questions on a tiny slip of paper, rolled it up, and placed it in the Western Wall of the temple mount in Jerusalem at sunrise. My forehead against the cool ancient stone, my palms up high, time collapsed…the better part of an hour evaporated like the morning fog…
It is dark outside. Not even the roosters have begun to crow…
I slide into the biting cold of the fresh spring water, holding the pole and stepping down the ancient steps. I breathe deeply and submerge….
The world disappears.
I pull my knees up against my chest, going fetal in this womb-tomb.
An avid surfer, I am used to being underwater and I gently roll backwards….
A glow emanates from nowhere and everywhere. I open my eyes underwater to confirm the experience and the light vanishes…
I come up for air twice and submerge again. The glow returns, and I feel enveloped in the Khesed-love of the Creator. Answers come to me faster than I can receive them.
I generate a will to receive.
Something shifts around me. The third time under turns into a dream. I feel as if I am breathing underwater. The glow gets warm.
All of my theological legalisms about baptism vanish and dissolve into an ocean of God’s presence.
As I climb out and dry off, my soul comes to total rest. I will walk for hours until the hilltop town awakens. Like an old snakeskin, I have shed something. A new season is starting…
Where is your “mikveh” where you take off everything in the presence of God?
When’s the last time you were there….?
David Housholder Essays 
8 comments
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June 29, 2011 at 10:12 am
Arlyn Norris
What a great way to remember your baptism! It sounds like it was a true mikvah, a cleansing bath. Thanks for your description of your experience.
June 29, 2011 at 10:23 am
Jeff Holton
Beautiful post. I, too, experienced something profound while visiting the Holy Land about a decade and a half ago.
Then I married an Arab Christian and still haven’t quite figured out if I negated the experience, or “collected the whole set.” 🙂
June 29, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Paula Hepola Anderson
Tsfat is a holy place, as are the Western Wall, the Holy Sepulcher, the caves under Bethlehem… and the small stool behind the altar of several churches I have pastored near the Host, the pool in my backyard… Check out McLaren’s new book “Naked Spirituality”
June 29, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Nancy
Be blessed by this intense experience Dave. I pray that all lovers of God could feel Khesed in this way, in this life. I had a similar feeling to what you are describing when I was baptized a few years ago. These experiences are glimpses at how it’s going to be when we are with Him eternally…and it’s going to be very, very good.
June 30, 2011 at 8:02 am
Jolene Anderson
This post totally moved me; brought tears. Several yrs. ago I was living in a very small camper in a modest trailer park while working in Edmonds, Wa. @ an orthopedic day surgery center. Divorced & alone again, this time without small children. My travel nursing placed nomadic demands on my stable/stationary lifestyle preference. New job; new state; city, new living quarters; new commute(public transit for first time in my life)… scary, stressful, alone. Then the winter rains started, saturating everything. My camper started leaking; leaking…everywhere. For days on end, every container I could muster was filled / emptied again; again. The igniter on the heater broke. Cold showers, wet clothes, bedding & a ceiling bowing to weight of all the rain, just waiting to cave in. One week until I could get the part for the igniter to fix it myself, too embarrassed to ask for help. I sat on the damp couch after a cold shower chilled to the bone, with a damp blanket around my nakedness; prayed…sobs; more prayer. I didn’t have to be there going through that. I had other choices. Why did I stay there? I needed the cold nakedness of my body; soul to be exposed to the only true security I’ve ever had…my Lord. I became warm; enlightened by His presence inside me. The shivering of days on end left. All of a sudden, I didn’t mind the rain or the leaks. My sobs were replaced with laughter at my situation; who was actually in control here. It certainly wasn’t me. My mikveh moment left me so vulnerable; close to God that each; every day hence, I strive for more of that closeness, warmth, Khesed love. Shekinah. The experience supercharged a tired worn faith that was lagging in so many ways. Now when it pours down rain, (most days here in Wa. state) I remember the shivering sobs followed by the warmth & contentedness of Shekinah, giving thanks each day for the awakening. I have never met anyone that has NOT said a trip to the Holy Land didn’t change them…for the good. It is on my bucket list. Superb post Dave. Absolutely loved it.
June 30, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Lindsey Trego
Still feeling so incredibly grateful that you had this experience!
June 30, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Paul Owens
thanks David…really thanks to the Lord for using you as one of his mules:) My most recent “mikveh” was last week: finally was granted ears to hear that I was wanting my way/will (again:))…realizing that I am so full of it that I stink. So here came the Lord to run me over with a Mack Truck…and I’m standing in the middle of the street pushing against the grill:). Finally realized, geeze, guess I oughta just lie down…and not get up after He runs me over…stay there and confess “okay Lord, put it in reverse and finish the job…then in your time pick me up afresh.” I’m a new man…learning to be sweetly run over by Jesus…every day. Thanks for the bath, Lord.
September 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Terry Nelson
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, Dave!! Such a powerful experience that I wanted it for myself!! Why not? Had been thinking about being baptized for a long time. But didn’t want a “normal” experience if there is such a thing. Was afraid that I would just be “dunked” and prayed over and that would be it. Wanted to experience God in a powerful way, and I don’t necessarily have those experiences. So I wasn’t sure until the last moment if I would be baptized or not. But God led me to do it. So I did it with the stipulation that I would go under water and wait to see what He had for me. I closed my eyes and saw nothing. However, when I opened my eyes in the murky water with people standing around me, I saw this extremely bright light, as bright as a light bulb and felt a huge joy. I had to come up for air and then went down again. The second time I went down I could barely stay down because my body wanted to keep floating up. But I saw the bright light again and by the time I came up again I could not hold my laughter in any longer. God filled me with an incredible joy and I was just bursting with laughter!! Quite an experience for someone who had such deep depression for so long just 18 months ago!! I PRAISE AND THANK YOU GOD, FOR YOU LOVE AND CARE FOR YOUR CHILDREN ABUNDANTLY!!