Listening to Ancient Believers Today
A Review of
The Way of the Desert Elders: How the Wisdom of Ancient Christians Sustains Us Today
Lisa Colón Delay
Paperback: Broadleaf Books, 2026
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Reviewed by Jeff Kennon
Some might think that people who lived a monastic life 1700 years ago in the barren areas of Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Palestine have little to say to us in 2026. The gap is just too large. We might prefer to pick up a book with a title like Learning 21st Century Spirituality; but Lisa Colón Delay in The Way of the Desert Elders: How the Wisdom of Ancient Christians Sustains Us Today warns that we are doing a disservice to ourselves not to listen to those who followed Christ centuries before us. Perhaps we need to reconsider the expanse of time and culture between us and these ancient believers. Perhaps we are more like them than we think.
In The Way of The Desert Elders, Delay invites her readers to journey back in time, not only studying how God worked through folks in the past, but letting such history cause us to examine our own heart, mind, and soul. Through peering into the lives of these desert fathers and mothers, “we can better understand our own longings, struggles, restlessness, and ordinary desires that come during our [own] spiritual searching” (6). Delay wants us to see that even though there is a cultural difference—after all, not many of us are choosing a desert lifestyle—one thing we do have in common that transcends time and place is the inner turmoil of being human.
The Way of The Desert Elders is not Delay’s only book on the spiritual practices of the ancients. She has also written The Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice about the desert hermit named Evagrius. This Egyptian desert father’s wisdom continues to appear in The Way of The Desert Elders, but Delay broadens her scope in this current book to include several other spiritual mothers and fathers. Her writing about these men and women is more than just an historical glance at when and how they lived; it is a dive into their hearts to uncover the soulful struggles they encountered. The titles of her opening nine chapters convey her purpose for this book. They each share the vices the desert dwellers battled along with the corresponding virtues they wished to uphold: “Gluttony to Temperance,” “Lust to Purity,” Avarice to Generosity,” Wrath to Meekness,” Acedia to Faithfulness,” “Despondency to Hope,” “Vainglory to Modesty,” “Envy to Celebration,” and “Pride to Humility.”
The way of these desert elders will be a long road. The journey from vice to virtue doesn’t magically end after a few days of practicing a spiritual discipline. I love the story Delay told to illustrate this point. One spiritual father, Pambo, gave his student John an unusual task. Pambo took a stick, stuck it in the ground, and told John to water it twice every day until it produced fruit. In order to get water for the stick, John had to walk twelve miles. Finally, after three years, the small twig sprang to life. John’s faithfulness was praised and the fruit that eventually came from that stick was called “the fruit of obedience” (106).
At the conclusion of each chapter, Delay posts reflection questions along with a prayer to help her readers plant in their soul what these desert fathers and mothers have been teaching. Not only were the conclusions of each chapter helpful, so was her overall conclusion in her last chapter, “Keeping the Elders Close: A Rule of Life.” There’s too much in this book to apply all of it; therefore, Delay encourages us to take four or five pieces of wisdom that we found meaningful and incorporate them in our daily life. Then apply one or two to our life each week and decide which one or two disciplines to do each month. Finally, pick one or two yearly activities (212). Granted this will take some time to accomplish, but this is what Delay was leading us toward throughout.
For those who are not familiar with the desert mothers and fathers, Delay’s writing would be an excellent start. If you desire further study, Delay provides resources to get you on your way. But regardless of how familiar you are with the ancient monastics, this book is bigger than the lives of these desert dwellers. Delay longs for her readers to examine their own vices and take up whatever discipline is needed to draw near to Christ and to have his heart transform their own. Whether it be prayer, meditation, repentance, silence, solitude, gratitude, worship, service, or celebration, Delay hopes that such things lead you not to an actual desert, but to a “mindfulness [as] a way of being, a spiritual sensitivity and tenderheartedness to the ways and will of God” (210).
Jeff Kennon
Jeff Kennon lives in Lubbock, Texas where is the director of the Baptist Student Ministries at Texas Tech University. He is also the author of The Cross-Shaped Life: Taking On Christ’s Humanity, published by Leafwood Press. You can find him online at www.jkennon.com.
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