Lisa Colón DeLay - The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice

Praise for The Wild Land Within

Its easy to get lost in a dense wood or a big city. But its even easier to get lost in the tangles of our inner lives. In this book, Lisa Coln DeLay offers some of the best inner-life guidance I know. Drawing on the many sound sources shes studied with care, including her own experience, she shares time-tested wisdom for people seeking a spiritual GPS to keep them oriented to true self. Highly recommended.

Parker J. Palmer, author of On the Brink of Everything; A Hidden Wholeness; Let Your Life Speak; and The Courage to Teach

Lisa Coln DeLay is a thoughtful, discerning, and encouraging guide to The Wild Land Withinan ecosystem of grace, a sacred place in our hearts and souls where we encounter the Divine Presence and learn to bear the beams of love. To read this book is to embark on a transformational spiritual adventure.

Carl McColman, author of Eternal Heart and other books

Every single page of this book pushes you to explore every aspect of your inner life and gaze upon a God who is able to provide peace and grow you despite what you may find. After reading this book, youll never look at spiritual growth books the same.

Terence Lester, founder of Love Beyond Walls

Lisa Coln DeLay is a spiritual cartographer. She maps out the lay of our spiritual land utilizing scripture, experience, and the Christian wisdom tradition throughout the ages, along with reason and psychology.... This is a wise, robust debut from an experienced spiritual director. It is a much-needed contribution to spiritual formation by a Latina woman in the Protestant world. I am incredibly thankful for it.

Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down

The climatological and geological metaphors in this book were powerful for me. Chasms, fire, still water, wildnessall plunged me more deeply into confronting myself and God in those places I dont often confront or talk about. I was blessed by the dangerous adventure of The Wild Land Within.

Jon M. Sweeney, author of The Pope Who Quit and other books

Lisa Coln DeLay is your companion and guide through the landscape of the interior. It is a wonderful journey that not only brings us closer to ourselves, but also helps us engage with our world and communities.... During these times of uncertainty, hardships, and even trauma, The Wild Land Within provides a roadmap for navigating the aching of the heart and soul, the yearnings of the mind and body.

Phuc Luu, author of Jesus of the East

Lisa Coln DeLay offers a hearty, thoughtful, and thorough approach to navigating the terrain of our spiritual lives. From Quakers to cognitive development, from desert fathers to twentieth-century priests and poets, she details the true journey we humans undertake with God. This book is a gift to the conversation around spiritual transformation in Christ.

Casey Tygrett, author of As I Recall

In these pages, Lisa Coln DeLay charts a path toward wholeness... inviting us to a reintegration through the diligent inner work of contemplative prayer and attentive listening to the wisdom of the forgotten and marginalized, from Evagrius Ponticus to African American and Latinx spirituality. In her writing and guidance through the inner terrain, Lisa bears the marks of genuine transformation from wound to love. This is profoundly insightful, important, and illuminating work.

Marc Thomas Shaw, executive director of Contemplative Light

Lisa Coln DeLay is a cartographer of the soul. Having ventured through its hills, forests, and ravines, she knows where the hidden creatures lurk and how to cut a path through its darker regions. The result is The Wild Land Within, a spiritual map for reconnecting head and heart, thought and feeling, desire and action. Thoughtful, practical, and delightfully written, this is an enriching book that can help us become whole.

Sheridan Voysey, author of The Making of Us and other books

Lisa Coln DeLay

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

THE WILD LAND WITHIN

Cultivating Wholeness through Spiritual Practice

Copyright 2021 Lisa Coln DeLay. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scriptures quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the KING JAMES VERSION (KJV): KING JAMES VERSION, public domain.

Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are from the Contemporary English Version Copyright 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.

Cover image: saemilee/istock

Cover design: Lindsey Owens

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6508-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6509-8

Note: Names and personal details of the people profiled in this book have been altered to protect their privacy.

To my father, Joseph Robert Coln: you were such an avid learner and reader, and you would be overjoyed at this book and celebrate it with so much gladness and pride. Thank you for your life and your love.

To my husband, Tim; my daughter, Gabrielle; and my son, Nathan, whose lives I am so grateful for and whose love keeps me going.

Flyover country is what I saw when I gazed out the window. Traveling by air from Chicago to San Francisco, I was fascinated by how little I knew of these landscapes. Down below, thousands of square miles of beautiful fields in Iowa and Nebraska stretched out like a patchwork. The stark wilderness landscapes of Colorado featured thick forests and high mountainsthe highest were capped with snow. Over Utah were expanses of barren salt flats. Then there was Nevada, with miles of uninhabited rugged desert terrains, canyons, and cliffs. And there was Lake Tahoe, fed by the streams coming from the verdant mountains of the Sierra Nevada. As a resident of the East Coast, I realized how unlikely it was that I would ever venture into those wild places.

My inner world has unknown terrain, and so does yours. This expanse includes our minds, hearts, wills, and spirits. The wild land within also includes our experiences, aspirations, and memories. And like it or not, this territory also includes shadowy areas of hidden influencers as well as triggering thoughts and feelings.

For many of us, the wild land within remains unexplored territory that we seldom navigate. We hardly know anything about it. We all, at times, avoid looking at painful or difficult parts of our inner selves because of our fears or the commotion of our lives. Some people manage to avert their gaze from their interior terrains for a lifetime.