What happens when you send a Christian and a Buddhist on a four-day unscheduled road trip? Then, in the mind of award-winning author Roland Merullo (BREAKFAST WITH BUDDHA), make that pair the two most famous religious leaders in the world, the Pope and the Dalai Lama, add a few sinners along the way, and throw in the hint of a miracle that couldn’t and shouldn’t be real, but just might be so --- a miracle that both men have been dreaming about?

"...a rollicking getaway combining high spiritual aspirations, religious ideals revamped for a new century, two old men who just want a vacation from adulation, and a very human passion revisited and recharged."

When the Pope decides to get away from the Vatican for a few days of incognito R&R, and wants to take the current Dalai Lama of Tibet with him on this entirely uncharacteristic, possibly scandalous excursion, he enlists his faithful assistant/cousin Paolo to figure out how it can be accomplished. Paolo turns to the only person he knows who might be able to help him come up with a workable plan --- his estranged wife, Rosa, who, among other things, runs a beauty salon. She arranges for the three men to turn into unrecognizable figures: the Pope will be a cosmopolitan businessman, the Dalai Lama will be a casual hanger-on with the rich and famous, and Paolo will be a dark-skinned immigrant, the kind of person other people despise on sight. They will be chauffeured by Rosa in a luxurious Maserati --- the very vehicle, she says, that no one would ever suspect a pontiff and a lama to wheel away in.

The four embark on four days of travel through Italy, each day enlivened by visions from the two religious guides’ curiously similar, vivid dreams. There are meetings with mysterious strangers --- a prostitute, a gypsy --- and many long conversations in between, as Rosa unabashedly badgers the holy men about religious rules and their own personal beliefs. Her questions challenge every assumption imaginable about eastern and western spirituality, and provide a satisfying framework for letting the two men be themselves, each coming up with surprising, spontaneous answers.

Rosa’s own faith will be reforged when they meet up with her and Paolo’s only daughter, now pregnant by her chosen lover --- a Buddhist priest, son of a Jewish rabbi. And Paolo will start to see his boss and his almost-failed marriage in a new light. But these events are nearly overshadowed by the final character on this magical mystical tour --- a woman with an incredible story to tell, a story linked to the holy leaders' recurring dreams.

Merullo is known for turning marshy, ticklish interreligious material into amusing, charming fabulist yarns, and THE DELIGHT OF BEING ORDINARY, of course, is no exception. Some, in fact, may say that this is his best book so far --- a rollicking getaway combining high spiritual aspirations, religious ideals revamped for a new century, two old men who just want a vacation from adulation, and a very human passion revisited and recharged.