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Breaking Records and Building Bridges: A Tale of Religious Diversity - Vicki Garlock

• Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding • Season 5 • Episode 2

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In September 2025, Vicki Garlock set a Guinness World Record by visiting 185 places of worship in Chicago in just one month. But this wasn't just about breaking a record—it was about experiencing the extraordinary religious diversity of one American city and promoting religious literacy. Join us as we explore what she learned, the communities she encountered, and how this ambitious project connects to her broader mission of cross-religious understanding and education.

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Chip Gruen:

Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host Chip Gruen. Today we have a returning guest, Vicki Garlock. You might remember her as the founder of the World Religions for Kids. She works with religious literacy, particularly geared towards elementary children. As a speaker and educator on these topics, she's published a number of different books, including"The ABCs of the World's Religions," which is a picture book about religious literacy."We All Have Sacred Spaces," which obviously deals with sacred spaces and places of ritual practice. She's trained, actually, as a cognitive psychologist, holding a PhD in cognitive psychology, but has worked in multi faith children's ministry, thinking about pluralism, about interfaith understanding, and, most importantly about religious literacy for quite a long time. The reason that she is back on ReligionWise is that she just completed something that is kind of unfathomable, hard for me to get my head around, but she just completed an attempt and a successful attempt, at the Guinness Book of World Records most sacred sites visited, or places of worship visited within a calendar month. And she visited 185 different sacred spaces in and around the environs of Chicago, Illinois, within the month of September. So I thought it would be great to have her come on and talk not only about that record and about what it means, but the values behind the attempt itself, what she learned along the way, and to share some of the experiences that that really intense 30 days of work encompassed. I was super happy to sit down and talk to Vicki about this, and hope you enjoy the conversation. Vicki Garlock, thanks for coming back on to ReligionWise.

Vicki Garlock:

Thanks for having me.

Chip Gruen:

All right. So this 185 places of worship in a month. I mean, that's a lot, and of course, that was what was necessary, right, to set the record with Guinness. But I want to get a little bit beyond that and talk about why was this something that you wanted to do? Why was this a meaningful endeavor beyond right, that that original premise of setting the record?

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, so I think that from the very beginning, I was not convinced that I would be able to break the Guinness World Record. It took a long time to get the rules for my attempt, and I just couldn't quite imagine, despite all my preparation, what it was going to look like when I actually got on the ground in Chicago. And so for me, it always had to be about something more than the Guinness World Record. And initially my idea was that I was really interested in lifting up the religious diversity, the religious diversity in just, you know, US city that's in the middle of the Midwest. And I was also interested in sharing people's sacred spaces, right? How do we create sacred spaces? What's the importance of these sacred spaces? How do we create meaningful places where people gather to live into their faith? So, and that all happened, I think, and that was good, and it was fun. And I think to a certain extent, I did accomplish that, but there was something more that ended up coming out of it, and that was making connections with all of these people. So one of the things that Guinness required, they required three forms of verification for every place that I visited, they required a timestamp selfie, then they required a quick video of the place of worship, and they required verification form, a witness form that someone would sign saying that they saw me on that date and on that time in that place. And that meant that I had to connect with someone at each place of worship. And that turned out to be the most amazing part of this journey, because I met over 185 people. And sometimes I was meeting the faith leader, right, the Imam, the minister, the rabbi, but sometimes I was meeting the building manager, the woman who cleaned the space, the locksmith. And so that turned out to be a really important and moving part of the whole experience. And so when all was said and done, I was super happy to have earned the Guinness World Record. But it really ended up being the icing on the cake for me.

Chip Gruen:

So you mentioned this a little bit, and you know, this is, this is my academic coming out, but thinking about like, definitions and parameters. And I know that you had conversations with Guinness, but I think it's a bigger question than that, about what counts as a sacred space, about when we're thinking about how we define, you know, what meets the bar, right? Obviously, this is really, well, I mean, maybe not so obviously, right? Because for some religious traditions, a lot of the ones that people think of when they think of world religions, right? There's a place, and as I always say, a guy in a pointy hat, right, that you can kind of point to.

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah.

Chip Gruen:

It's bigger than that, right? So can you talk a little bit about how you made some of those decisions about what counts and, and what parameters you had to, you had to live with and, and maybe some, you know, some of the places that were beyond the normal expectation of what we think of when we think of a ritual space or a sacred space.

Vicki Garlock:

So when all was said and done, like when I actually looked at the rules, it was not just places of worship, it was also places of study. And so they would have counted yeshivas if I had been able to go there. But when all was said and done, I felt like Guinness accepted and adopted a pretty broad range of what would count. So for example, if people used the space as a place of worship, even though that was not necessarily the only thing that happened in that building or in that space that counted. So I ended up at some really interesting places. So first of all, yes, free standing, churches, synagogues, that was all sort of obvious, right? But when I went to places that were in storefronts. So for example, many non denominational churches are just in the storefront. There are Buddhist centers that are just in the storefront. All of those counted. I also some places meet on Sunday mornings in school auditoriums, right? If I went on Sunday morning, they were set up for Sunday service. Those places counted. I went to there's this really interesting phenomenon, and I don't know if it happens in all cities, but it certainly happens in Chicago. Many of the people who serve as drivers, right, like Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, private vehicles, are Muslim, and so they're driving around the city all day. And so there are several places that the top floor right, the ground level, floor is a restaurant. It's a restaurant where they serve ethnic food, and then there's a masjid in the basement, so that these drivers can stop by and they can eat, and then they can buzz downstairs and pray. And so, you know, I was not able to take a photo of the masjid downstairs in the basement, right? But I took a timestamp selfie in front of the restaurant. I took a video in front of the restaurant, and I said, there is a masjid in the basement of this restaurant, and someone at the restaurant signed to affirm that I was there and that there was a masjid in the basement, and Guinness counted that. So, you know, I felt like in many respects, they were pretty open and accepting about all of those spaces. The other one that came up is there is a church called Urban Village. It's kind of out of Wicker Park, but they meet on Sunday mornings at The Den Theatre. And The Den Theatre is a multi theater complex at this point. I think when the guy bought it many years ago, it was just one little theater. And they bring in all kinds. I mean, they have a talent agent. They bring in all kinds of amazing acts, like comedians that you and I have heard of, people who have their own shows on Netflix, etc, etc. But on Sunday morning, you know, who's going to see a comedian on Sunday morning? No one. And so they rent to this guy from Urban Village church. And so I posted that on social media that, you know, Oh, guess what? You know, I was at The Den Theatre, and they have a church there. And people were amazed, because people in Chicago have been to The Den Theatre to see comedians. They had no idea there was a church in one of those theaters on Sunday morning. So that counted, right? Because I did the verification that I needed to do, and they signed that there's a church there on Sunday mornings. So in those ways, I felt like Guinness was, at that point, pretty accepting of most of the places that I went to.

Chip Gruen:

So the companion question there, on the one hand, it's the sacred space, or the place of worship, etc, or the place of study in some cases, but then the corollary to that is what counts as a religion as well, right? Like that, there are things that I think I would say, serve the function of religion, but maybe they don't consider themselves a religious group, or we might read them as sort of cultural I mean, religion is a famously kind of westernized term. Did you run into any issues there?

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, so there are some places that so no matter how broad you get in terms of how you define religion or how you define sacred spaces or places of worship, there's always going to be something on the edges, right? So many years ago, I went to, you know, just sort of this fun talk, and it was this guy talking about sports as religion, and he's a Cubs fan, as am I. So it really resonated with me and spoke to me. But, you know, he said, if you look at many of the qualities of religion, right, being a sports fan is your religion in in some ways. And so, yes, so there are some places that I went to that, you know, I would call them a religion. They would not call themselves a religion, or they balk at being called a religion. And as you say, that's a very western term, right? So, you know, even some people who follow Hinduism, for example, right, balk at being called a religion or Buddhism, they'll say, Well, it's a philosophy and so and so, I think that in this particular case, you know, Guinness and I got to decide what was the religion, and that's sort of what we went with. But yeah, I think no matter how broad you get, there are always places that either they themselves balk at being called a religion, or someone from the outside would say, I don't know if that's really a religion.

Chip Gruen:

So something that we haven't talked about directly, though it's come up a few times, I think it will be on our it's on my mind. I think it will be on our listeners minds. It's like, why Chicago? I mean, I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, so Chicago was the big city for me. It was the, you know, five hours away, six hours away. And I, you know, to this day, just adore the city of Chicago for lots of reasons, but, but why Chicago for you? I mean, is this historical? Is this personal? What's going on?

Vicki Garlock:

All of those things. So that was really one of the first questions was, where was I going to make this attempt? And I have colleagues, I have interfaith colleagues in various cities, and my initial idea was that someone would do this attempt with me. I really never planned to do it myself, but I couldn't find anybody who wanted to take a month off. But of course, the initial thing that everybody said is, you need to go to New York. Go to New York City. And, you know, I have colleagues at the interface center of New York and and the more I thought about it, the more it felt hard. I don't really know New York City. I have a couple of people that I know who live there. It's so big. And so I was like, Maybe I should look at Atlanta. And so I looked at Atlanta, because I live in Asheville, so that's the closest really big city for us, right? And I looked at Atlanta, and the problem with Atlanta was that things are so spread out in Atlanta, there are a lot of churches and a few synagogues downtown, but everything else was really spread out. And I thought, I'm not going to have time like I'm not going to have time to be driving all around. I also looked at Washington, DC, and it was the same thing, right? There's, you know, a lot of churches and synagogues sort of close in, but then you're, you have to drive, you have to go to Maryland, you have to go to Virginia. And I'm like, that's just going to be too much driving. Then I started looking at Chicago, and it was perfect in many ways, so there's a lot of diversity in a pretty confined area. I also grew up about 60 miles south of Chicago, not considered a suburb. I grew up in Kankakee, Illinois. It's the middle of corn country, but my parents grew up in the Chicago suburbs. I have lots of high school friends. Most of my high school friends are still in the area, and at the time, I thought, well, maybe they could help me, right? They could meet me, or I could, you know, commandeer some of my friends. And so Chicago just made a lot of sense. And because I had grown up in the area, watching television stations out of Chicago, the streets were sort of familiar to me, the neighborhoods were sort of familiar to me, there was just enough familiarity to make it feel doable. As it turned out, at the end of July, I found out that one of the rules that Guinness had for my attempt was that I could not use a personal vehicle or the vehicle of a friend at all. And so unbeknownst to me, I got very at the time. I got really lucky, because Chicago has an amazing mass transit system, right? They have a great bus line, and they have a whole system of L trains. And so I ended up taking over 65 bus rides. And over 65 L rides, in addition to walking five or six miles a day. So when all was said and done, I'm not sure I could have successfully achieved a Guinness World Record if I hadn't been in Chicago. I probably could have done it in New York City. Would have been hard for me personally, because I don't know it very well, but Chicago ended up being absolutely the perfect place.

Chip Gruen:

And I'll say, given the you know, the prominence, not not that these were connected institutionally to what you do, but the prominence of the Parliament of World Religions in the late 19th century and the the University of Chicago religious studies, the legacy there. I mean, I don't know, it seems kind of poetic that you would do this thing in Chicago as well.

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah. I mean, it really is an, you know, you say you grew up in Louisville. I mean, Louisville is an amazing, right, sort of interfaith, multi faith place, but so is Chicago, and I also had a lot of colleagues in Chicago. I was in touch, for example, with someone from Interfaith America, and she came and walked around with me for one day, Vanessa Avery, who is from Sacred Spaces, Inc, she is in sort of the New York area, but she is often in Chicago. And so she was in Chicago during the time that I was in Chicago in September. And so she walked around with me for a day. I have a long ago interfaith colleague who, you know, went to the University of Chicago, and so I got to see him one day. So it was really fun to connect with, you know, colleagues that I had in Chicago as well, and it is amaze...Chicago is amazingly diverse. I mean, it was, it was really incredible.

Chip Gruen:

So let's dig a little bit deeper into some of the logistics of reaching out to 185 different communities. And you know what? What is the initial vetting look like? What does initial contact look like? What was the reaction? Were people like, oh, yeah, that sounds great. Or were there some communities that are like, we don't want to have anything to do with this at all, you know. Give me some logistics here.

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah. So this is, you know, in in some ways, I visited 185 places that counted for the Guinness World Record. And I also visited some extra places that where I couldn't get the evidence I needed, and so they didn't count towards the record. So in visiting over 185 places, I would say that each story was sort of different. So what I did was I started by creating literally two dimensional maps that I printed out, which, of course, my young adult children thought was hilarious that I was printing out two dimensional maps. And I you can't just sort of Google places of worship, right? I had to create the maps. So I would start with churches, because there are the most of those which I knew in advance. And so I would print out a map of all the churches in the small neighborhood, and then I would add in the synagogues, the temples, you know, I would just the, you know, other places of worship. So once I had this map, then I would go to the website, their websites, and I would find an email address, and I would email them, you know, Hi, I'm Vicki Gorlock. I'm trying to get a Guinness World Record. And, you know, I'm going to be in your area on such and such a day. Can I stop by? And so a certain percentage of people would email me back then, it was mostly larger churches who had an administrative assistant who was there, you know, 15, 20, 25 or 40 hours a week, right? And so, you know, so that was fine. I would set up a time, and I would just start filling in my map, but then I would email people again, and I would email people a second time, and am I like, oh, you might have missed my email. And so then I got a few more that way. They'd be like, Oh yeah, I saw your email. I didn't really know. Of course, there were still people who never got back to me. So then I would call people. I would call people and leave a phone message. And what was interesting was there were a lot of places that have young adult administrative assistants that are part time, right? So they looked at the email and they were just, you know, too long, didn't read, right? But once I got them on the phone, they were like, oh, yeah, I kind of saw your email. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so then I got you know more by making phone calls. There were some people along the way who politely declined. They would email me back and say, Yeah, this isn't something we want to be a part of. And that was fine. They mostly didn't say why. Maybe they thought it was gimmicky, or, you know, they don't they're not normally there during the week, or who knows what. So there was that. But the second part of the story, before I started, I had made appointments with probably about 85 places. So the original record was 76 and so in theory, 85 was technically enough. But, you know, I probably wanted to pad that. I was gonna go for about 95, 98 maybe 100 places at the most. But on Friday, September 5, I had been going around Chicago now for three or four days, Guinness emailed me and said, someone else in India already broke the record, and it's not 76 anymore. It's 111 so if you want to break the record, you have to go to at least 112. So I'm, I'm there, I'm already got my plan. I've got my whole schedule. I'm going to add a few more, and good to go. Nope. So my initial reaction was to panic. I went, oh my god, I have to add like, 30 more places. Like, how am I going to do that? I don't even know how I'm going to do this. Like, I already emailed and emailed again and called these people. So I decided that what I should do was I had no one on that first Saturday, which I think was September 6. And I'm like, you can't just sit around all day. You got to get 112 you got to think of something. So okay, Saturday. Where am I going to go on a Saturday? Seventh Day Adventist churches, right? They are there on a Saturday. So I google Seventh Day Adventist churches, and sure enough, there's one not very far from where I'm staying. So I get up on Saturday morning and I take the bus up to this Seventh Day Adventist Church. And it was this little, tiny church, and during the week, it's an art gallery. And then on Saturday mornings, this congregation comes in, they set up their coffee table, they arrange the chairs, their minister comes in, and they create a worship space for themselves on Saturdays. So I walk in and I explain that I'm trying to get this Guinness World Record. They were so nice to me, and they were so excited. And so I got all the evidence that I needed for that space. But in the meantime, this guy says to me, oh my gosh, there's like, a bunch of other Seventh Day Adventist churches that you really need to go visit. And so he said, Look, there's two here, there's one here, there's another one. So I was like, okay, so I get on the bus, and I go further north, and I find this huge Seventh Day Adventist Church. It was actually Spanish Seventh Day Adventist Church, right? So it's called Iglesia Adventista del Septimo Dia. So I walk in and I explain to these women greeters that are standing there that I'm trying to get this Guinness World Record, and they're just like, we, we don't know what you're talking about. And also, like, we are not signing any forms, and we need to get Jordy maybe. Okay, so they like on this walkie talkie, or like this guy, Jordy, comes walking down the stairs, right? And I explain it to him, and he's totally into it. He said, Oh, he's like, check this out. He said, we're gonna get two in the same building. He said, because we have two congregations here. And he said, the upstairs, congregation is in Spanish. The service is in Spanish. Everything's in Spanish. And he said, and then we have what's called second generation place of worship downstairs. It's modern, it has a band, and it's in English, because all of these people's children do not want to worship in Spanish. They want to worship in English. So I got two there, and then I went to another Seventh Day Adventist Church, and I stayed for their worship service, and afterwards I got all my evidence. So once I had that model right where I could show up and explain what I was doing and meet people where they were at, when they were there, the whole thing opened up for me, and I realized, and not everyone said yes, and not everyone was that enthusiastic, but the vast majority of people were, and they gave me other suggestions, and they gave me the evidence that I needed. And so I went to four historically Black churches on Sunday morning, and then I just sort of cranked it up. And so every day I went to the places I had appointments, but I also just rang doorbells and knocked on doors and got a whole bunch of signatures, and that's how I got to 185 which was never my plan.

Chip Gruen:

Wow, wow. Yeah, I mean, I think probably people can hear it in your voice. What a extrovert adn lively person you are, but I'm sitting here thinking, oh my gosh. I could not take that rejection. I could not take a month's worth of rejection, you know, over and over, even if, like, 90% of people were very friendly, it would, it would still, it would still bug me. But,

Vicki Garlock:

Well, you know, that's what they say, though, right? Is, how are you successful at anything? I mean, most of the time you're successful at anything because you've been able to move through whatever form of rejection there is. I mean, you're in academia, you know, you submit papers and they get rejected. Or these reviewers, you know that look at them, they just have all these changes and edits. So I think that's always part of the process of, quote, unquote, being successful. It's always part of the process in any big project as well. And so this was sort of both of those things, right, trying to be successful at a big project.

Chip Gruen:

So I want to connect a couple of dots that you've mentioned, because you, you've mentioned, obviously, Sundays are relatively easy. You've mentioned Saturdays. You know, Fridays we can imagine would not be as difficult. But then you have Monday through Thursday. And I know that you had some trepidation, of, like, all right, what am I going to do? Because you don't have to go to a worship service, right? You just have so you don't, you didn't need that, but still, you know, as you, as you mentioned, some of these places end up being dark, you know, for those other for four days a week. But now, as you're talking about it, and you're talking about locksmiths and janitors and administrative assistants, I got to think, at this point, looking back, that those connections you made Monday through Thursday might have been some of the richest, most interesting, because you are running to people you didn't think you would run into.

Vicki Garlock:

Oh, absolutely. So the first thing I'll say is that Saturdays and Sundays were tricky in their own way, because, you know, and I know, because I've worked at a church part time, you know, off and on for the last 15 years. So because people are busy, right? So you can't just, like, show up in the middle of their worship service. If you do, you need to stay for the whole thing, you know, and then get someone to sign. And in the morning they're they're preparing, right? So it was more likely that there would be people at a masjid on a Friday afternoon, but they got their own thing going on. So Friday, Saturday and Sunday was tricky for those reasons, right? Monday through Thursday was tricky because, as you point out, you know, many times nobody's there, right? Many ministers of small faith communities have full time jobs, right? They're just part time ministers on Wednesday night and Sunday mornings. And so that's where two things happened. One, people would agree to meet me, which was very lovely. But then I would meet all these other people, and I got to tell you, one of the most amazing set of interactions I had was with building managers. So the building that's when they're there. They're there Monday through Thursday, right cleaning and getting the building prepared. And there are some big buildings in Chicago, right? Big places of worship, and somebody's got to take care of those, those spaces, and it's a lot. And so these people were there, and they would give me these 45 minute tours, right? So one of the things that was so amazing, and one of the reasons why I think people were so excited and enthusiastic was because they just felt seen, right? I mean, they're doing all this hard work all the time, many times, for a small congregation, and it feels like no one's ever paying attention, that nobody even knows they're there. And here I was showing up and, you know, looking at their space and commenting on their sanctuary. Every single person I met was proud of their sanctuary, was proud of their sacred space, was proud of their place of worship. And it could have been the most simple little, you know, a classroom they had that they had set up as a Buddhist center to these massive, you know, taking up a whole block church. It didn't matter. Everyone was really connected to their place of worship, and they were really excited to share that with someone, and they were really excited that someone cared enough to take a tour and and listen and and, and so yeah, the the commitment that people have to these communities and these places was really one of the unexpected stories for me. And as it turns out, one of the best stories, one of the most moving stories, and one of the most special stories that came out of this attempt.

Chip Gruen:

So thinking about that which is unexpected, let's talk about the sort of, the flavor of the diversity itself. Because you knew going into this, you'd go to a Catholic church, right? You'd go to an Orthodox synagogue, you would go, you know, like there would be things that we could have put on our bingo cards right away and but you know, particularly this way of getting to know neighborhoods that you've described, and sort of getting on the ground and then figuring out what you're doing, rather than have everything planned out...

Vicki Garlock:

Right.

Chip Gruen:

I gotta think that you're running into religious communities that not only you didn't know existed in Chicago, but maybe you didn't know existed, period, right? So can you share with us some of the the more you know, unexpected religious communities that you ran into?

Vicki Garlock:

Sure. So I live in Asheville, North Carolina, which, let's call that, about 100,000 people, and we're fairly diverse. We have three synagogues here. We have several Buddhist centers. We have a Hindu temple that's not far away. We have a Greek Orthodox Church. And so I, you know, I've been to visit, I have visited all of those places. And so, as you say, you know, that was the bingo card. But there were, I think there were two points of real diversity for me, I don't know that they were unexpected, but they were opportunities for me because I was in a bigger, much bigger city. So one of them was how much diversity there is within a tradition, right? So yes, we have one Greek Orthodox Church here in Asheville, and there are many, many Orthodox churches in Chicago, and a lot of them were near where I was staying for the first two weeks. You literally could not walk more than a couple of blocks, and there would be another Orthodox church. And these Orthodox churches were set up to meet the needs of a particular community that spoke a particular language. So there's Greek Orthodox churches and services are in Greek. There's Ukrainian Orthodox churches and their services are in Ukrainian. There are Slavic Orthodox churches and their services are in a created language, a designed language called Church Slavonic, which I had never even heard of before I went up there. So that was interesting. Also, we have one Orthodox synagogue here, and it is Chabad Lubavitch Shul. And so that's fine. That was my experience with Orthodox Judaism. But when I got to Chicago, I realized that even within the Orthodox community, there are different versions of Orthodox Judaism, right? So I went to two modern Orthodox synagogues. I went to an Orthodox synagogue not associated with Chabad Lubovitch, right? And then, of course, there are many Chabad Lubovitch centers throughout Chicago, so that was interesting, sort of the extent of intra faith. And then there were a few places I was able to visit that we just don't have in Asheville, and maybe not even in North Carolina, I don't know. But, for example, the Brahma Kumaris. We don't have a Brahma Kumaris meditation center here, and so I was able to learn a little bit more about that. We also do not have an ISKCON here in Asheville. So ISKCON stands for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which, you know, I think lay people would just call the Hare Krishnas. They have a big they have more than one, but they have a big ISKCON center in the sort of downtown area. And they do Sunday night caretans and vegetarian feasts. And so I went for the whole evening. And, you know, danced and did caretan, and it was, it was really fun. So that was another one. Also, we do have a Christian Scientist church here in Asheville, but I've never been, not for any particular reason, it's just never happened. They have a huge Christian Science church right in downtown Chicago, called the 17th Church of Christ Scientist. And so they were very receptive. They were, they were one of the people that emailed me back right away and said, Oh yes, come when you're in the loop, when you're in the downtown area. And also, if you want to, you can come to our Wednesday night testimony meeting. And I was like, okay, so I was actually, I actually ended up, in addition to visiting over 185 places, I actually attended over 20 worship services of various sorts, and two of them were testimony Wednesday evening testimony meetings at Christian Science churches. One of them was this big downtown church, and the other one was in Evanston and so and so that was a nice opportunity for me to be able to do that. I was also invited to attend I was at a one of the many Greek Orthodox churches. I think I probably visited four or five Greek Orthodox churches, and this one was a little bit north of downtown, and they just happened to be doing a blessing of the waters on the shores of Lake Michigan. And they would throw a cross into Lake Michigan, and the kids would, you know, swim out and try to get the cross. And so it was this sort of, you know, ritual for blessing of the waters, and then this fun kids activity. And so he's like, you can come if you want to. And so I went and took a bunch of photos, and, you know, just had this opportunity to, you know, engage in a ritual practice that I probably wouldn't have just here in Asheville.

Chip Gruen:

So talking about these different groups, and you've mentioned this tangentially a couple of times in our conversation thus far, but I just want to underscore it that there are dress codes, ritual expectations, protocols for visitors that are only going to be heightened by the fact that you're a woman. So I'm wondering, you know, I mean, obviously religious literacy is your thing, right? So that you didn't go into this blind, you knew, but how did you prepare for that? Was this ever an insurmountable boundary for you? You know, what was your experience like around those sorts of you know, expectations for for visitors to these places?

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, so because I have visited many places of worship in the past and gone to services, I felt pretty competent, and I felt like I pretty much knew what the expectations were. I did definitely pack a couple of lightweight shirts that were totally long sleeve, so that my arms would be covered or I had a couple sweaters with me. I also packed several, you know, hijabs and scarves and things that I could use on the fly as a hijab. So, and I also know that in many places, you need to take your shoes off, so I made sure that my socks didn't have holes in them, for example. So some of that stuff I could sort of, you know, manage on the front end. The other thing I'll say is that if you are not there for a worship service, things change a little bit, right? So if I walk into a masjid and it's not prayer time, they're not as picky about whether or not my head is covered as they would be, for example, when I attended a Jummah service, right? And so I often when I'm in a masjid, even if it's not prayer time, I put a scarf around, just kind of loosely around my head, just out of respect. And I often know sort of the greetings that I'm supposed to use, although like the Hare Krishnas, you know, so So, for example, I know it was Rosh Hashanah the Jewish holidays were starting. Rosh Hashanah started on September 22 so I know to say Shana Tova. And Jews really appreciate it when you recognize their holidays. You know, I know when you enter a masjid, you can say as-salamu alaykum, and things like that. But it turns out that you know there are other greetings. So in the Brahma Kumaris tradition, the greeting is Om Shanti. And so I say Om Shanti, and you say Om Shanti back. And that means we're recognizing each other as Brahma Kumaris. The same thing with Hare Krishnas, right? When you see someone, you say Hare Krishna, they say Hare Krishna back. And so I learned some new sort of greetings and little polite interactions like that. So yeah, I would say that um sort of, in general, people were very welcoming. So I, you know, present as what I am, which is a white, older woman. And I think that, you know, people treated me as such, right? And I think in many cases, people were surprised that I knew as much as I did, right? So they would be explaining to me, Well, you know, this is where the Imam does the, you know, we kind of call it a sermon. Well, no, you know, it's the khutbah, and I sort of know those, and this faces Mecca. And so they were sort of, in many cases, surprised at what I knew. Because, you know, they deal with a lot of people who know little to nothing about about their tradition. It was interesting to go to some of the different Buddhist centers as well, because the meditation practices are different at each place. So at the Kadampa center, right? It was a 30 minute meditation, and some of it was guided meditation, and then there was a brief teaching, right? So that was pretty short, but I went to the Chicago Zen Center in Evanston, and you know, that was a two hour thing, right? It's 20 minutes of silent sitting, not guided meditation, facing a wall. And then, you know, five minutes of walking meditation called kinhin. And then 25 minutes of sitting meditation, facing a wall, five minutes of walking, 25 minutes. So that's a serious practice. That is their beginning practice, right? So normally their practice is 55 minutes of sitting. I was there on beginner's night, and so it's always interesting to see the ways in which faith communities practice, even in Christian churches, the way you pass the peace varies from church to church. Some churches are hugging churches, and some churches are shake your hand churches, and some churches because, I think probably because of the pandemic, you literally just, you know, make a peace sign across to each other, right? And it's not denominational. It is, from what I can tell, it's just sort of church by church. The same thing is true for communion, right, or the Eucharist, right? Each church kind of has their own way of doing it, and at some point you learn to follow along surreptitiously and do what everybody else does. Hopefully you don't have to go first. And so I mean, I always it's, that's what I love about this business of religious literacy, is that there's always more to learn. There's I learned something every single time, every single day. And of course, that's what I love about it. That's what makes other people uncomfortable, but that's what I love about it.

Chip Gruen:

So there are obviously lots of personal experiences that you had here, and maybe you'll get the opportunity to tell a few more of those stories. But I want to get back to the Guinness, right? The whole impetus for this thing. What do you hope this record accomplishes? Is it about raising awareness of religious diversity? Is it about a larger conversation about religious literacy and pluralism? Is there something else like, what is the function of the sort of the publicity that this gets,...

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah.

Chip Gruen:

...that's important to you?

Vicki Garlock:

So I think that that changed over time, and I also think it continues to evolve. So, you know, on the one hand. So initially, the way I found out about this record is that someone in India had established the record for visiting the most places of worship in a single month. And Religion News Service did a story about it. I think he actually did the record in 2022 but then it had to be certified by Guinness. And the story, I think, came out in 2023 and it was 76 and so as soon as I read the article, I looked at my husband and I said, I think I could beat that. Now I didn't know what I was talking about. So initially, I think it was just like a cool thing to do. I just thought it would be like a really fun thing to do, like, oh my gosh, could I actually have a Guinness World Record? But then, as I really delved into it and decided on Chicago and started planning for it, I thought, Wow. You know, I'm what I'm really interested in is religious diversity, and lifting up religious diversity, and also the diversity of spaces, right? You know, big churches, little churches, you know, tiny Buddhist centers. And so when I was planning for it, that was really my motivation, right? And that's the business that I'm in. And I can, you know, learn something, I can visit some cool spaces, I can take some fun photos. It's all going to be good, and it's on brand for me. But what happened when I was there was that I realized that these connections that I was making with these folks who were so connected to their space, right, that that is actually the story that is now resonating with me the most, and it was very interesting to be in Chicago at this time, right? So what's on the news? What's on the Chicago news all the time, and this has been true for decades, is crime, right? So my high school friends don't even go into the city, right? Because they're afraid of many places, and they've just the news just plays up all this crime murders all the time. And now on top of that, we have the Trump administration bringing in ICE right and partly to clean up the crime in Chicago and partly to deal with immigration issues. And so that was on the news every night. Every night the Chicago news is about crime, and it's about ICE coming in and what neighborhoods they were going to be in, and how the counter protests to that protests were going to go and so it was really interesting to then, for me as an individual, to be walking around Chicago literally all day every day, riding busses, riding the L, walking five to six miles a day, you know, meeting anywhere from 10 to 20 people a day and having these amazing interactions. And it was such a counter narrative to the broader media narrative that was happening at the same time. And so what it's really brought up for me is, you know, humans are really amazing, and we hear a lot about how we live in a divided America, and how, you know, we're in these two camps, and these camps can't talk to one another, and we have no way to bridge these divides, and family holidays are ruined because families are in two different camps. And what I was seeing was that there's a lot of people out there who are working really hard every day in their faith communities, in their places of worship, in their neighborhoods. Many, many places of worship are, you know, feeding the hungry, helping to house the unhoused. They're really doing ministries in their neighborhoods and in their communities, and they're very proud of that, and they're very proud of the way in which their place of worship is part of that, right? So for me, now the narrative is, how do we lift that up? How do we remember that humans are really amazing. They can be so creative, so kind, so compassionate, so hard working, and why is that getting lost in the broader media narratives that we have today? And how do we lift up those stories? How do we help ourselves, remember that we're amazing. We're an amazing species. And just it's not that we as individuals are ...all of us are amazing and can are capable of doing amazing things. And how do we remember that? And how do we lift those stories up? So that, interestingly enough, has become the narrative that is most interesting to me now.

Chip Gruen:

All right, so we're nearing the end of our time, so I just want to end up with, you know, what else would you like to talk about, about this experience? What else, what are we missing here that you think is is really key in understanding, you know, this 185 places in 30 days and and what that meant for you, and how that was made possible?

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, so I think one of the things that I realized in the process of doing a Guinness attempt is how privileged it is to even make a Guinness attempt. I, I don't know. I mean, there are over 65,000 Guinness World Records. So, you know, I just know about the one that I did, but it, I think a lot of Guinness attempts require time, they require money. They require a community of people to support you. In this case, I needed at least 112 people to sign a witness form, right? I need people to open their doors for me. And so what I realized is that there are really such a small percentage of people on this planet who have the resources to even make a Guinness attempt. And so I had because I was walking five or six miles a day and riding busses, and Ls I had a lot of time to think about that, to think about, what does it mean to actually do a Guinness attempt? And there were people around me who made sacrifices, right? So my husband is staying in Asheville for a month. You know, my kids are sort of on their own for a month. My 87 year old parents are on their own for a month, you know, and the world continues on. So so for me to be able to take a month sort of out of my life and clear my schedule and just walk around to all these different places of worship is very privileged. I also think it takes a little bit of luck to achieve a Guinness World Record. And in my case, I think there were two points of luck. One was that Guinness actually emailed me and told me that the record had changed from 76 to 111 I don't know how I would have known that. And if they had not told me, or if they had told me, you know, way into the month of September, I don't think I would have been successful at my attempt, because I was aiming for like 95 or 98 or maybe that would not have been enough. The other thing was, not only was Chicago the perfect city, but September, Chicago in September was I was the perfect place. I often tell people my best decision in my life, I think, was marrying my husband, but my second best decision may have been Chicago in September. So the weather was amazing. Poured rain a couple of mornings, sprinkled a couple of other mornings, but it was just it was beautiful. It was sunny. You know, it was 60s, 70s, maybe low 80s. And I really have to wonder, like, if it had been rainy and cold the whole time, would people have been so friendly and opening their doors? I don't know, there's no way for me to know. But the other thing that came out for me is that so many people that I knew were supporting me. People were following me on social media. People were texting me, people from all walks of my life, right? So my yoga friends, my you know, Warren Wilson, colleagues from where I used to teach as a professor, the churches where I've worked, everyone was, you know, responding on Instagram, liking my Facebook posts. And there were a couple of days where I just did not feel like getting up and starting the whole, you know, set of walking around again, and I was like, you have to, because people are waiting to see what places you visited today. You've got to post it on social media. And you know, that made a difference for me. That made a real difference. And I don't think I've ever done anything in my life where I felt that supported by so many people from so many different walks of life, and that, it made a difference, and it was really special, and it's something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Chip Gruen:

So since you mention it, do you want to share your social media handles so people can go back and look at these, some of the posts that you made?

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, sure. So you can find me on Instagram, World Religions for Kids. I'm also on Facebook, World Religions for Kids. I'm on LinkedIn, I do post there a little bit. But yeah, you can simply find Vicki Garlock or look up World Religions for Kids. I am not off the grid by any stretch, and you can see things I posted over the course of the month, and I will be continuing to post at least over the next couple of weeks.

Chip Gruen:

All right, that's great. So actually, I lied. I want to end with one more little tidbit here, and this is maybe an exhortation to to listeners, and you can chime in on this. I'm not asking any of them to visit 185 places in 30 days. But the next time that you're walking and you walk past a space and the doors are open, or there seem to be people around, stick your nose in, have a conversation with somebody who's different from you, think about the worldviews of others, right? Practice empathy for as as you say, other members of this amazing species that we're a part of. And I think it'll be a good experience, and it'll expand your world.

Vicki Garlock:

Yeah, totally agree. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Chip Gruen:

Well, thank you so much, Vicki, it's always great to catch up and congratulations on the record, and here is to all of your future work. We look forward to seeing what you do next.

Vicki Garlock:

Thank you so much.

Chip Gruen:

This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced by the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding of Muhlenberg College. ReligionWise is produced and directed by Christine Flicker. For more information about additional programming, or to make an inquiry about a speaking engagement, please visit our website at religionandculture.com There, you'll find our contact information, links to other programming and have the opportunity to support the work of the Institute. Please subscribe to ReligionWise wherever you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you next time.