October 15, 2025 • 51 mins
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.
Show Notes:
- World Religions for Kids website (https://worldreligions4kids.com)
- World Religions for Kids Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/worldreligions4kids)
- World Religions for Kids Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/WorldReligions4Kids)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:04):
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host Chip
Gruen. Today we have a returningguest, Vicki Garlock. You might
remember her as the founder ofthe World Religions for Kids.
She works with religiousliteracy, particularly geared
towards elementary children. Asa speaker and educator on these
(00:27):
topics, she's published a numberof different books, including
"The ABCs of the World'sReligions," which is a picture
book about religious literacy.
"We All Have Sacred Spaces,"which obviously deals with
sacred spaces and places ofritual practice. She's trained,
actually, as a cognitivepsychologist, holding a PhD in
cognitive psychology, but hasworked in multi faith children's
(00:51):
ministry, thinking aboutpluralism, about interfaith
understanding, and, mostimportantly about religious
literacy for quite a long time.
The reason that she is back onReligionWise is that she just
completed something that is kindof unfathomable, hard for me to
get my head around, but she justcompleted an attempt and a
(01:16):
successful attempt, at theGuinness Book of World Records
most sacred sites visited, orplaces of worship visited within
a calendar month. And shevisited 185 different sacred
spaces in and around theenvirons of Chicago, Illinois,
(01:37):
within the month of September.
So I thought it would be greatto have her come on and talk not
only about that record and aboutwhat it means, but the values
behind the attempt itself, whatshe learned along the way, and
to share some of the experiencesthat that really intense 30 days
of work encompassed. I was superhappy to sit down and talk to
(01:59):
Vicki about this, and hope youenjoy the conversation. Vicki
Garlock, thanks for coming backon to ReligionWise.
Vicki Garlock (02:09):
Thanks for having me.
Chip Gruen (02:11):
All right. So this 185 places of worship in a
month. I mean, that's a lot, andof course, that was what was
necessary, right, to set therecord with Guinness. But I want
to get a little bit beyond thatand talk about why was this
something that you wanted to do?
Why was this a meaningfulendeavor beyond right, that that
original premise of setting therecord?
Vicki Garlock (02:37):
Yeah, so I think that from the very beginning, I
was not convinced that I wouldbe able to break the Guinness
World Record. It took a longtime to get the rules for my
attempt, and I just couldn'tquite imagine, despite all my
preparation, what it was goingto look like when I actually got
on the ground in Chicago. And sofor me, it always had to be
(03:01):
about something more than theGuinness World Record. And
initially my idea was that I wasreally interested in lifting up
the religious diversity, thereligious diversity in just, you
know, US city that's in themiddle of the Midwest. And I was
also interested in sharingpeople's sacred spaces, right?
(03:23):
How do we create sacred spaces?
What's the importance of thesesacred spaces? How do we create
meaningful places where peoplegather to live into their faith?
So, and that all happened, Ithink, and that was good, and it
was fun. And I think to acertain extent, I did accomplish
that, but there was somethingmore that ended up coming out of
it, and that was makingconnections with all of these
(03:46):
people. So one of the thingsthat Guinness required, they
required three forms ofverification for every place
that I visited, they required atimestamp selfie, then they
required a quick video of theplace of worship, and they
required verification form, awitness form that someone would
sign saying that they saw me onthat date and on that time in
(04:11):
that place. And that meant thatI had to connect with someone at
each place of worship. And thatturned out to be the most
amazing part of this journey,because I met over 185 people.
And sometimes I was meeting thefaith leader, right, the Imam,
the minister, the rabbi, butsometimes I was meeting the
(04:36):
building manager, the woman whocleaned the space, the
locksmith. And so that turnedout to be a really important and
moving part of the wholeexperience. And so when all was
said and done, I was super happyto have earned the Guinness
World Record. But it reallyended up being the icing on the
(04:58):
cake for me.
Chip Gruen (05:01):
So you mentioned this a little bit, and you know,
this is, this is my academiccoming out, but thinking about
like, definitions andparameters. And I know that you
had conversations with Guinness,but I think it's a bigger
question than that, about whatcounts as a sacred space, about
when we're thinking about how wedefine, you know, what meets the
(05:25):
bar, right? Obviously, this isreally, well, I mean, maybe not
so obviously, right? Because forsome religious traditions, a lot
of the ones that people think ofwhen they think of world
religions, right? There's aplace, and as I always say, a
guy in a pointy hat, right, thatyou can kind of point to.
Vicki Garlock (05:40):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (05:41):
It's bigger than that, right? So can you talk a
little bit about how you madesome of those decisions about
what counts and, and whatparameters you had to, you had
to live with and, and maybesome, you know, some of the
places that were beyond thenormal expectation of what we
think of when we think of aritual space or a sacred space.
Vicki Garlock (05:59):
So when all was said and done, like when I
actually looked at the rules, itwas not just places of worship,
it was also places of study. Andso they would have counted
yeshivas if I had been able togo there. But when all was said
and done, I felt like Guinnessaccepted and adopted a pretty
(06:21):
broad range of what would count.
So for example, if people usedthe space as a place of worship,
even though that was notnecessarily the only thing that
happened in that building or inthat space that counted. So I
ended up at some reallyinteresting places. So first of
all, yes, free standing,churches, synagogues, that was
(06:44):
all sort of obvious, right? Butwhen I went to places that were
in storefronts. So for example,many non denominational churches
are just in the storefront.
There are Buddhist centers thatare just in the storefront. All
of those counted. I also someplaces meet on Sunday mornings
(07:07):
in school auditoriums, right? IfI went on Sunday morning, they
were set up for Sunday service.
Those places counted. I went tothere's this really interesting
phenomenon, and I don't know ifit happens in all cities, but it
certainly happens in Chicago.
Many of the people who serve asdrivers, right, like Uber
drivers, Lyft drivers, privatevehicles, are Muslim, and so
(07:30):
they're driving around the cityall day. And so there are
several places that the topfloor right, the ground level,
floor is a restaurant. It's arestaurant where they serve
ethnic food, and then there's amasjid in the basement, so that
these drivers can stop by andthey can eat, and then they can
buzz downstairs and pray. Andso, you know, I was not able to
(07:54):
take a photo of the masjiddownstairs in the basement,
right? But I took a timestampselfie in front of the
restaurant. I took a video infront of the restaurant, and I
said, there is a masjid in thebasement of this restaurant, and
someone at the restaurant signedto affirm that I was there and
that there was a masjid in thebasement, and Guinness counted
that. So, you know, I felt likein many respects, they were
(08:20):
pretty open and accepting aboutall of those spaces. The other
one that came up is there is achurch called Urban Village.
It's kind of out of Wicker Park,but they meet on Sunday mornings
at The Den Theatre. And The DenTheatre is a multi theater
complex at this point. I thinkwhen the guy bought it many
(08:41):
years ago, it was just onelittle theater. And they bring
in all kinds. I mean, they havea talent agent. They bring in
all kinds of amazing acts, likecomedians that you and I have
heard of, people who have theirown shows on Netflix, etc, etc.
But on Sunday morning, you know,who's going to see a comedian on
Sunday morning? No one. And sothey rent to this guy from Urban
(09:02):
Village church. And so I postedthat on social media that, you
know, Oh, guess what? You know,I was at The Den Theatre, and
they have a church there. Andpeople were amazed, because
people in Chicago have been toThe Den Theatre to see
comedians. They had no ideathere was a church in one of
those theaters on Sundaymorning. So that counted, right?
(09:24):
Because I did the verificationthat I needed to do, and they
signed that there's a churchthere on Sunday mornings. So in
those ways, I felt like Guinnesswas, at that point, pretty
accepting of most of the placesthat I went to.
Chip Gruen (09:38):
So the companion question there, on the one hand,
it's the sacred space, or theplace of worship, etc, or the
place of study in some cases,but then the corollary to that
is what counts as a religion aswell, right? Like that, there
are things that I think I wouldsay, serve the function of
religion, but maybe they don'tconsider themselves a religious
(10:00):
group, or we might read them assort of cultural I mean,
religion is a famously kind ofwesternized term. Did you run
into any issues there?
Vicki Garlock (10:11):
Yeah, so there are some places that so no
matter how broad you get interms of how you define religion
or how you define sacred spacesor places of worship, there's
always going to be something onthe edges, right? So many years
ago, I went to, you know, justsort of this fun talk, and it
was this guy talking aboutsports as religion, and he's a
(10:32):
Cubs fan, as am I. So it reallyresonated with me and spoke to
me. But, you know, he said, ifyou look at many of the
qualities of religion, right,being a sports fan is your
religion in in some ways. Andso, yes, so there are some
places that I went to that, youknow, I would call them a
religion. They would not callthemselves a religion, or they
(10:55):
balk at being called a religion.
And as you say, that's a verywestern term, right? So, you
know, even some people whofollow Hinduism, for example,
right, balk at being called areligion or Buddhism, they'll
say, Well, it's a philosophy andso and so, I think that in this
particular case, you know,Guinness and I got to decide
(11:18):
what was the religion, andthat's sort of what we went
with. But yeah, I think nomatter how broad you get, there
are always places that eitherthey themselves balk at being
called a religion, or someonefrom the outside would say, I
don't know if that's really areligion.
Chip Gruen (11:36):
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 beon our listeners minds. It's
like, why Chicago? I mean, Igrew up in Louisville, Kentucky,
so Chicago was the big city forme. It was the, you know, five
hours away, six hours away. AndI, you know, to this day, just
(11:57):
adore the city of Chicago forlots of reasons, but, but why
Chicago for you? I mean, is thishistorical? Is this personal?
What's going on?
Vicki Garlock (12:08):
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 initialidea was that someone would do
this attempt with me. I reallynever planned to do it myself,
(12:28):
but I couldn't find anybody whowanted to take a month off. But
of course, the initial thingthat everybody said is, you need
to go to New York. Go to NewYork City. And, you know, I have
colleagues at the interfacecenter of New York and and the
more I thought about it, themore it felt hard. I don't
really know New York City. Ihave a couple of people that I
(12:50):
know who live there. It's sobig. And so I was like, Maybe I
should look at Atlanta. And so Ilooked at Atlanta, because I
live in Asheville, so that's theclosest really big city for us,
right? And I looked at Atlanta,and the problem with Atlanta was
that things are so spread out inAtlanta, there are a lot of
churches and a few synagoguesdowntown, but everything else
(13:13):
was really spread out. And Ithought, I'm not going to have
time like I'm not going to havetime to be driving all around. I
also looked at Washington, DC,and it was the same thing,
right? There's, you know, a lotof churches and synagogues sort
of close in, but then you're,you have to drive, you have to
go to Maryland, you have to goto Virginia. And I'm like,
that's just going to be too muchdriving. Then I started looking
(13:37):
at Chicago, and it was perfectin many ways, so there's a lot
of diversity in a prettyconfined area. I also grew up
about 60 miles south of Chicago,not considered a suburb. I grew
up in Kankakee, Illinois. It'sthe middle of corn country, but
my parents grew up in theChicago suburbs. I have lots of
(13:58):
high school friends. Most of myhigh school friends are still in
the area, and at the time, Ithought, well, maybe they could
help me, right? They could meetme, or I could, you know,
commandeer some of my friends.
And so Chicago just made a lotof sense. And because I had
grown up in the area, watchingtelevision stations out of
Chicago, the streets were sortof familiar to me, the
(14:19):
neighborhoods were sort offamiliar to me, there was just
enough familiarity to make itfeel doable. As it turned out,
at the end of July, I found outthat one of the rules that
Guinness had for my attempt wasthat I could not use a personal
vehicle or the vehicle of afriend at all. And so
(14:39):
unbeknownst to me, I got very atthe time. I got really lucky,
because Chicago has an amazingmass transit system, right? They
have a great bus line, and theyhave a whole system of L trains.
And so I ended up taking over 65bus rides. And over 65 L rides,
in addition to walking five orsix miles a day. So when all was
(15:05):
said and done, I'm not sure Icould have successfully achieved
a Guinness World Record if Ihadn't been in Chicago. I
probably could have done it inNew York City. Would have been
hard for me personally, becauseI don't know it very well, but
Chicago ended up beingabsolutely the perfect place.
Chip Gruen (15:27):
And I'll say, given the you know, the prominence,
not not that these wereconnected institutionally to
what you do, but the prominenceof the Parliament of World
Religions in the late 19thcentury and the the University
of Chicago religious studies,the legacy there. I mean, I
don't know, it seems kind ofpoetic that you would do this
(15:47):
thing in Chicago as well.
Vicki Garlock (15:49):
Yeah. I mean, it really is an, you know, you say
you grew up in Louisville. Imean, Louisville is an amazing,
right, sort of interfaith, multifaith place, but so is Chicago,
and I also had a lot ofcolleagues in Chicago. I was in
touch, for example, with someonefrom Interfaith America, and she
came and walked around with mefor one day, Vanessa Avery, who
(16:13):
is from Sacred Spaces, Inc, sheis in sort of the New York area,
but she is often in Chicago. Andso she was in Chicago during the
time that I was in Chicago inSeptember. And so she walked
around with me for a day. I havea long ago interfaith colleague
who, you know, went to theUniversity of Chicago, and so I
(16:33):
got to see him one day. So itwas really fun to connect with,
you know, colleagues that I hadin Chicago as well, and it is
amaze...Chicago is amazinglydiverse. I mean, it was, it was
really incredible.
Chip Gruen (16:47):
So let's dig a little bit deeper into some of
the logistics of reaching out to185 different communities. And
you know what? What is theinitial vetting look like? What
does initial contact look like?
What was the reaction? Werepeople like, oh, yeah, that
sounds great. Or were there somecommunities that are like, we
(17:09):
don't want to have anything todo with this at all, you know.
Give me some logistics here.
Vicki Garlock (17:15):
Yeah. So this is, you know, in in some ways, I
visited 185 places that countedfor the Guinness World Record.
And I also visited some extraplaces that where I couldn't get
the evidence I needed, and sothey didn't count towards the
record. So in visiting over 185places, I would say that each
story was sort of different. Sowhat I did was I started by
(17:38):
creating literally twodimensional maps that I printed
out, which, of course, my youngadult children thought was
hilarious that I was printingout two dimensional maps. And I
you can't just sort of Googleplaces of worship, right? I had
to create the maps. So I wouldstart with churches, because
there are the most of thosewhich I knew in advance. And so
(17:59):
I would print out a map of allthe churches in the small
neighborhood, and then I wouldadd in the synagogues, the
temples, you know, I would justthe, you know, other places of
worship. So once I had this map,then I would go to the website,
their websites, and I would findan email address, and I would
email them, you know, Hi, I'mVicki Gorlock. I'm trying to get
a Guinness World Record. And,you know, I'm going to be in
(18:21):
your area on such and such aday. Can I stop by? And so a
certain percentage of peoplewould email me back then, it was
mostly larger churches who hadan administrative assistant who
was there, you know, 15, 20, 25or 40 hours a week, right? And
so, you know, so that was fine.
I would set up a time, and Iwould just start filling in my
(18:42):
map, but then I would emailpeople again, and I would email
people a second time, and am Ilike, oh, you might have missed
my email. And so then I got afew 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 Iwould call people. I would call
people and leave a phonemessage. And what was
(19:03):
interesting was there were a lotof places that have young adult
administrative assistants thatare part time, right? So they
looked at the email and theywere just, you know, too long,
didn't read, right? But once Igot them on the phone, they were
like, oh, yeah, I kind of sawyour email. Yeah, that's pretty
cool. And so then I got you knowmore by making phone calls.
(19:25):
There were some people along theway who politely declined. They
would email me back and say,Yeah, this isn't something we
want to be a part of. And thatwas fine. They mostly didn't say
why. Maybe they thought it wasgimmicky, or, you know, they
don't they're not normally thereduring the week, or who knows
what. So there was that. But thesecond part of the story, before
(19:49):
I started, I had madeappointments with probably about
85 places. So the originalrecord was 76 and so in theory,
85 was technically enough. But,you know, I probably wanted to
pad that. I was gonna go forabout 95, 98 maybe 100 places at
(20:09):
the most. But on Friday,September 5, I had been going
around Chicago now for three orfour days, Guinness emailed me
and said, someone else in Indiaalready broke the record, and
it's not 76 anymore. It's 111 soif you want to break the record,
you have to go to at least 112.
So I'm, I'm there, I'm alreadygot my plan. I've got my whole
(20:33):
schedule. I'm going to add a fewmore, and good to go. Nope. So
my initial reaction was topanic. 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 goingto do this. Like, I already
emailed and emailed again andcalled these people. So I
decided that what I should dowas I had no one on that first
(20:56):
Saturday, which I think wasSeptember 6. And I'm like, you
can't just sit around all day.
You got to get 112 you got tothink of something. So okay,
Saturday. Where am I going to goon a Saturday? Seventh Day
Adventist churches, right? Theyare there on a Saturday. So I
google Seventh Day Adventistchurches, and sure enough,
(21:16):
there's one not very far fromwhere I'm staying. So I get up
on Saturday morning and I takethe bus up to this Seventh Day
Adventist Church. And it wasthis little, tiny church, and
during the week, it's an artgallery. And then on Saturday
mornings, this congregationcomes in, they set up their
coffee table, they arrange thechairs, their minister comes in,
(21:37):
and they create a worship spacefor themselves on Saturdays. So
I walk in and I explain that I'mtrying to get this Guinness
World Record. They were so niceto me, and they were so excited.
And so I got all the evidencethat I needed for that space.
But in the meantime, this guysays to me, oh my gosh, there's
like, a bunch of other SeventhDay Adventist churches that you
(21:59):
really need to go visit. And sohe said, Look, there's two here,
there's one here, there'sanother one. So I was like,
okay, so I get on the bus, and Igo further north, and I find
this huge Seventh Day AdventistChurch. It was actually Spanish
Seventh Day Adventist Church,right? So it's called Iglesia
Adventista del Septimo Dia. So Iwalk in and I explain to these
(22:24):
women greeters that are standingthere that I'm trying to get
this Guinness World Record, andthey're just like, we, we don't
know what you're talking about.
And also, like, we are notsigning any forms, and we need
to get Jordy maybe. Okay, sothey like on this walkie talkie,
or like this guy, Jordy, comeswalking down the stairs, right?
And I explain it to him, andhe's totally into it. He said,
(22:46):
Oh, he's like, check this out.
He said, we're gonna get two inthe same building. He said,
because we have twocongregations here. And he said,
the upstairs, congregation is inSpanish. The service is in
Spanish. Everything's inSpanish. And he said, and then
we have what's called secondgeneration place of worship
(23:08):
downstairs. It's modern, it hasa band, and it's in English,
because all of these people'schildren do not want to worship
in Spanish. They want to worshipin English. So I got two there,
and then I went to anotherSeventh Day Adventist Church,
and I stayed for their worshipservice, and afterwards I got
all my evidence. So once I hadthat model right where I could
(23:28):
show up and explain what I wasdoing and meet people where they
were at, when they were there,the whole thing opened up for
me, and I realized, and noteveryone said yes, and not
everyone was that enthusiastic,but the vast majority of people
were, and they gave me othersuggestions, and they gave me
(23:49):
the evidence that I needed. Andso I went to four historically
Black churches on Sundaymorning, and then I just sort of
cranked it up. And so every dayI went to the places I had
appointments, but I also justrang doorbells and knocked on
doors and got a whole bunch ofsignatures, and that's how I got
to 185 which was never my plan.
Chip Gruen (24:12):
Wow, wow. Yeah, I mean, I think probably people
can hear it in your voice. Whata extrovert adn lively person
you are, but I'm sitting herethinking, oh my gosh. I could
not take that rejection. I couldnot take a month's worth of
rejection, you know, over andover, even if, like, 90% of
(24:36):
people were very friendly, itwould, it would still, it would
still bug me. But,
Vicki Garlock (24:40):
Well, you know, that's what they say, though,
right? Is, how are yousuccessful at anything? I mean,
most of the time you'resuccessful at anything because
you've been able to move throughwhatever form of rejection there
is. I mean, you're in academia,you know, you submit papers and
they get rejected. Or thesereviewers, you know that look at
them, they just have all thesechanges and edits. So I think
(25:02):
that's always part of theprocess of, quote, unquote,
being successful. It's alwayspart of the process in any big
project as well. And so this wassort of both of those things,
right, trying to be successfulat a big project.
Chip Gruen (25:17):
So I want to connect a couple of dots that you've
mentioned, because you, you'vementioned, obviously, Sundays
are relatively easy. You'vementioned Saturdays. You know,
Fridays we can imagine would notbe as difficult. But then you
have Monday through Thursday.
And I know that you had sometrepidation, of, like, all
right, what am I going to do?
Because you don't have to go toa worship service, right? You
(25:38):
just have so you don't, youdidn't need that, but still, you
know, as you, as you mentioned,some of these places end up
being dark, you know, for thoseother for four days a week. But
now, as you're talking about it,and you're talking about
locksmiths and janitors andadministrative assistants, I got
to think, at this point, lookingback, that those connections you
made Monday through Thursdaymight have been some of the
(25:59):
richest, most interesting,because you are running to
people you didn't think youwould run into.
Vicki Garlock (26:03):
Oh, absolutely.
So the first thing I'll say isthat Saturdays and Sundays were
tricky in their own way,because, you know, and I know,
because I've worked at a churchpart time, you know, off and on
for the last 15 years. Sobecause people are busy, right?
So you can't just, like, show upin the middle of their worship
service. If you do, you need tostay for the whole thing, you
(26:25):
know, and then get someone tosign. And in the morning they're
they're preparing, right? So itwas more likely that there would
be people at a masjid on aFriday afternoon, but they got
their own thing going on. SoFriday, Saturday and Sunday was
tricky for those reasons, right?
Monday through Thursday wastricky because, as you point
(26:47):
out, you know, many timesnobody's there, right? Many
ministers of small faithcommunities have full time jobs,
right? They're just part timeministers on Wednesday night and
Sunday mornings. And so that'swhere two things happened. One,
people would agree to meet me,which was very lovely. But then
I would meet all these otherpeople, and I got to tell you,
(27:09):
one of the most amazing set ofinteractions I had was with
building managers. So thebuilding that's when they're
there. They're there Mondaythrough Thursday, right cleaning
and getting the buildingprepared. And there are some big
buildings in Chicago, right? Bigplaces of worship, and
somebody's got to take care ofthose, those spaces, and it's a
(27:30):
lot. And so these people werethere, and they would give me
these 45 minute tours, right? Soone of the things that was so
amazing, and one of the reasonswhy I think people were so
excited and enthusiastic wasbecause they just felt seen,
right? I mean, they're doing allthis hard work all the time,
(27:51):
many times, for a smallcongregation, and it feels like
no one's ever paying attention,that nobody even knows they're
there. And here I was showing upand, you know, looking at their
space and commenting on theirsanctuary. Every single person I
met was proud of theirsanctuary, was proud of their
sacred space, was proud of theirplace of worship. And it could
(28:13):
have been the most simplelittle, you know, a classroom
they had that they had set up asa Buddhist center to these
massive, you know, taking up awhole block church. It didn't
matter. Everyone was reallyconnected to their place of
worship, and they were reallyexcited to share that with
(28:34):
someone, and they were reallyexcited that someone cared
enough to take a tour and andlisten and and, and so yeah, the
the commitment that people haveto these communities and these
places was really one of theunexpected stories for me. And
as it turns out, one of the beststories, one of the most moving
(28:56):
stories, and one of the mostspecial stories that came out of
this attempt.
Chip Gruen (29:03):
So thinking about that which is unexpected, let's
talk about the sort of, theflavor of the diversity itself.
Because you knew going intothis, you'd go to a Catholic
church, right? You'd go to anOrthodox synagogue, you would
go, you know, like there wouldbe things that we could have put
on our bingo cards right awayand but you know, particularly
this way of getting to knowneighborhoods that you've
(29:25):
described, and sort of gettingon the ground and then figuring
out what you're doing, ratherthan have everything planned
out...
Vicki Garlock (29:32):
Right.
Chip Gruen (29:33):
I gotta think that you're running into religious
communities that not only youdidn't know existed in Chicago,
but maybe you didn't knowexisted, period, right? So can
you share with us some of thethe more you know, unexpected
religious communities that youran into?
Vicki Garlock (29:51):
Sure. So I live in Asheville, North Carolina,
which, let's call that, about100,000 people, and we're fairly
diverse. We have threesynagogues here. We have several
Buddhist centers. We have aHindu temple that's not far
away. We have a Greek OrthodoxChurch. And so I, you know, I've
been to visit, I have visitedall of those places. And so, as
(30:13):
you say, you know, that was thebingo card. But there were, I
think there were two points ofreal 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 iswithin a tradition, right? So
(30:34):
yes, we have one Greek OrthodoxChurch here in Asheville, and
there are many, many Orthodoxchurches in Chicago, and a lot
of them were near where I wasstaying for the first two weeks.
You literally could not walkmore than a couple of blocks,
and there would be anotherOrthodox church. And these
Orthodox churches were set up tomeet the needs of a particular
(30:58):
community that spoke aparticular language. So there's
Greek Orthodox churches andservices are in Greek. There's
Ukrainian Orthodox churches andtheir services are in Ukrainian.
There are Slavic Orthodoxchurches and their services are
in a created language, adesigned language called Church
Slavonic, which I had never evenheard of before I went up there.
(31:19):
So that was interesting. Also,we have one Orthodox synagogue
here, and it is Chabad LubavitchShul. And so that's fine. That
was my experience with OrthodoxJudaism. But when I got to
Chicago, I realized that evenwithin the Orthodox community,
there are different versions ofOrthodox Judaism, right? So I
(31:40):
went to two modern Orthodoxsynagogues. I went to an
Orthodox synagogue notassociated with Chabad
Lubovitch, right? And then, ofcourse, there are many Chabad
Lubovitch centers throughoutChicago, so that was
interesting, sort of the extentof intra faith. And then there
were a few places I was able tovisit that we just don't have in
(32:02):
Asheville, and maybe not even inNorth Carolina, I don't know.
But, for example, the BrahmaKumaris. We don't have a Brahma
Kumaris meditation center here,and so I was able to learn a
little bit more about that. Wealso do not have an ISKCON here
in Asheville. So ISKCON standsfor the International Society
(32:22):
for Krishna Consciousness,which, you know, I think lay
people would just call the HareKrishnas. They have a big they
have more than one, but theyhave a big ISKCON center in the
sort of downtown area. And theydo Sunday night caretans and
vegetarian feasts. And so I wentfor the whole evening. And, you
know, danced and did caretan,and it was, it was really fun.
(32:46):
So that was another one. Also,we do have a Christian Scientist
church here in Asheville, butI've never been, not for any
particular reason, it's justnever happened. They have a huge
Christian Science church rightin downtown Chicago, called the
17th Church of Christ Scientist.
And so they were very receptive.
They were, they were one of thepeople that emailed me back
(33:07):
right away and said, Oh yes,come when you're in the loop,
when you're in the downtownarea. And also, if you want to,
you can come to our Wednesdaynight testimony meeting. And I
was like, okay, so I wasactually, I actually ended up,
in addition to visiting over 185places, I actually attended over
20 worship services of varioussorts, and two of them were
(33:31):
testimony Wednesday eveningtestimony meetings at Christian
Science churches. One of themwas this big downtown church,
and the other one was inEvanston and so and so that was
a nice opportunity for me to beable to do that. I was also
invited to attend I was at a oneof the many Greek Orthodox
churches. I think I probablyvisited four or five Greek
(33:53):
Orthodox churches, and this onewas a little bit north of
downtown, and they just happenedto be doing a blessing of the
waters on the shores of LakeMichigan. And they would throw a
cross into Lake Michigan, andthe kids would, you know, swim
out and try to get the cross.
And so it was this sort of, youknow, ritual for blessing of the
waters, and then this fun kidsactivity. And so he's like, you
(34:15):
can come if you want to. And soI went and took a bunch of
photos, and, you know, just hadthis opportunity to, you know,
engage in a ritual practice thatI probably wouldn't have just
here in Asheville.
Chip Gruen (34:30):
So talking about these different groups, and
you've mentioned thistangentially 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 goingto be heightened by the fact
that you're a woman. So I'mwondering, you know, I mean,
(34:53):
obviously religious literacy isyour thing, right? So that you
didn't go into this blind, youknew, but how did you prepare
for that? Was this ever aninsurmountable boundary for you?
You know, what was yourexperience like around those
sorts of you know, expectationsfor for visitors to these
places?
Vicki Garlock (35:10):
Yeah, so because I have visited many places of
worship in the past and gone toservices, I felt pretty
competent, and I felt like Ipretty much knew what the
expectations were. I diddefinitely pack a couple of
lightweight shirts that weretotally long sleeve, so that my
arms would be covered or I had acouple sweaters with me. I also
(35:34):
packed several, you know, hijabsand scarves and things that I
could use on the fly as a hijab.
So, and I also know that in manyplaces, you need to take your
shoes off, so I made sure thatmy socks didn't have holes in
them, for example. So some ofthat stuff I could sort of, you
know, manage on the front end.
The other thing I'll say is thatif you are not there for a
(35:57):
worship service, things change alittle bit, right? So if I walk
into a masjid and it's notprayer time, they're not as
picky about whether or not myhead is covered as they would
be, for example, when I attendeda Jummah service, right? And so
I often when I'm in a masjid,even if it's not prayer time, I
(36:21):
put a scarf around, just kind ofloosely around my head, just out
of respect. And I often knowsort of the greetings that I'm
supposed to use, although likethe Hare Krishnas, you know, so
So, for example, I know it wasRosh Hashanah the Jewish
holidays were starting. RoshHashanah started on September 22
(36:41):
so I know to say Shana Tova. AndJews really appreciate it when
you recognize their holidays.
You know, I know when you entera masjid, you can say as-salamu
alaykum, and things like that.
But it turns out that you knowthere are other greetings. So in
the Brahma Kumaris tradition,the greeting is Om Shanti. And
so I say Om Shanti, and you sayOm Shanti back. And that means
(37:04):
we're recognizing each other asBrahma Kumaris. The same thing
with Hare Krishnas, right? Whenyou see someone, you say Hare
Krishna, they say Hare Krishnaback. And so I learned some new
sort of greetings and littlepolite interactions like that.
So yeah, I would say that umsort of, in general, people were
(37:24):
very welcoming. So I, you know,present as what I am, which is a
white, older woman. And I thinkthat, you know, people treated
me as such, right? And I thinkin many cases, people were
surprised that I knew as much asI did, right? So they would be
explaining to me, Well, youknow, this is where the Imam
(37:45):
does the, you know, we kind ofcall it a sermon. Well, no, you
know, it's the khutbah, and Isort of know those, and this
faces Mecca. And so they weresort of, in many cases,
surprised at what I knew.
Because, you know, they dealwith a lot of people who know
little to nothing about abouttheir tradition. It was
interesting to go to some of thedifferent Buddhist centers as
(38:08):
well, because the meditationpractices are different at each
place. So at the Kadampa center,right? It was a 30 minute
meditation, and some of it wasguided meditation, and then
there was a brief teaching,right? So that was pretty short,
but I went to the Chicago ZenCenter in Evanston, and you
know, that was a two hour thing,right? It's 20 minutes of silent
(38:29):
sitting, not guided meditation,facing a wall. And then, you
know, five minutes of walkingmeditation called kinhin. And
then 25 minutes of sittingmeditation, facing a wall, five
minutes of walking, 25 minutes.
So that's a serious practice.
That is their beginningpractice, right? So normally
their practice is 55 minutes ofsitting. I was there on
(38:51):
beginner's night, and so it'salways interesting to see the
ways in which faith communitiespractice, even in Christian
churches, the way you pass thepeace varies from church to
church. Some churches arehugging churches, and some
churches are shake your handchurches, and some churches
(39:11):
because, I think probablybecause of the pandemic, you
literally just, you know, make apeace sign across to each other,
right? And it's notdenominational. It is, from what
I can tell, it's just sort ofchurch by church. The same thing
is true for communion, right, orthe Eucharist, right? Each
church kind of has their own wayof doing it, and at some point
(39:32):
you learn to follow alongsurreptitiously and do what
everybody else does. Hopefullyyou don't have to go first. And
so I mean, I always it's, that'swhat I love about this business
of religious literacy, is thatthere's always more to learn.
There's I learned somethingevery single time, every single
day. And of course, that's whatI love about it. That's what
(39:55):
makes other peopleuncomfortable, but that's what I
love about it.
Chip Gruen (40:00):
So there are obviously lots of personal
experiences that you had here,and maybe you'll get the
opportunity to tell a few moreof those stories. But I want to
get back to the Guinness, right?
The whole impetus for thisthing. What do you hope this
record accomplishes? Is it aboutraising awareness of religious
diversity? Is it about a largerconversation about religious
(40:23):
literacy and pluralism? Is theresomething else like, what is the
function of the sort of thepublicity that this gets,...
Vicki Garlock (40:33):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (40:34):
...that's important to you?
Vicki Garlock (40:36):
So I think that that changed over time, and I
also think it continues toevolve. So, you know, on the one
hand. So initially, the way Ifound out about this record is
that someone in India hadestablished the record for
visiting the most places ofworship in a single month. And
Religion News Service did astory about it. I think he
(41:00):
actually did the record in 2022but then it had to be certified
by Guinness. And the story, Ithink, came out in 2023 and it
was 76 and so as soon as I readthe article, I looked at my
husband and I said, I think Icould beat that. Now I didn't
know what I was talking about.
So initially, I think it wasjust like a cool thing to do. I
just thought it would be like areally fun thing to do, like, oh
(41:22):
my gosh, could I actually have aGuinness World Record? But then,
as I really delved into it anddecided on Chicago and started
planning for it, I thought, Wow.
You know, I'm what I'm reallyinterested in is religious
diversity, and lifting upreligious diversity, and also
the diversity of spaces, right?
You know, big churches, littlechurches, you know, tiny
(41:46):
Buddhist centers. And so when Iwas planning for it, that was
really my motivation, right? Andthat's the business that I'm in.
And I can, you know, learnsomething, I can visit some cool
spaces, I can take some funphotos. It's all going to be
good, and it's on brand for me.
(42:06):
But what happened when I wasthere was that I realized that
these connections that I wasmaking with these folks who were
so connected to their space,right, that that is actually the
story that is now resonatingwith me the most, and it was
very interesting to be inChicago at this time, right? So
(42:29):
what's on the news? What's onthe Chicago news all the time,
and this has been true fordecades, is crime, right? So my
high school friends don't evengo into the city, right? Because
they're afraid of many places,and they've just the news just
plays up all this crime murdersall the time. And now on top of
(42:49):
that, we have the Trumpadministration bringing in ICE
right and partly to clean up thecrime in Chicago and partly to
deal with immigration issues.
And so that was on the newsevery night. Every night the
Chicago news is about crime, andit's about ICE coming in and
what neighborhoods they weregoing to be in, and how the
counter protests to thatprotests were going to go and so
(43:11):
it was really interesting tothen, for me as an individual,
to be walking around Chicagoliterally all day every day,
riding busses, riding the L,walking five to six miles a day,
you know, meeting anywhere from10 to 20 people a day and having
these amazing interactions. Andit was such a counter narrative
(43:34):
to the broader media narrativethat was happening at the same
time. And so what it's reallybrought up for me is, you know,
humans are really amazing, andwe 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'ttalk to one another, and we have
(43:56):
no way to bridge these divides,and family holidays are ruined
because families are in twodifferent camps. And what I was
seeing was that there's a lot ofpeople out there who are working
really hard every day in theirfaith communities, in their
places of worship, in theirneighborhoods. Many, many places
(44:16):
of worship are, you know,feeding the hungry, helping to
house the unhoused. They'rereally doing ministries in their
neighborhoods and in theircommunities, and they're very
proud of that, and they're veryproud of the way in which their
place of worship is part ofthat, right? So for me, now the
narrative is, how do we liftthat up? How do we remember that
(44:39):
humans are really amazing. Theycan be so creative, so kind, so
compassionate, so hard working,and why is that getting lost in
the broader media narrativesthat we have today? And how do
we lift up those stories? How dowe help ourselves, remember that
(44:59):
we're amazing. We're an amazingspecies. And just it's not that
we as individuals are ...all ofus are amazing and can are
capable of doing amazing things.
And how do we remember that? Andhow do we lift those stories up?
So that, interestingly enough,has become the narrative that is
(45:22):
most interesting to me now.
Chip Gruen (45:27):
All right, so we're nearing the end of our time, so
I just want to end up with, youknow, what else would you like
to talk about, about thisexperience? What else, what are
we missing here that you thinkis is really key in
understanding, you know, this185 places in 30 days and and
(45:47):
what that meant for you, and howthat was made possible?
Vicki Garlock (45:49):
Yeah, so I think one of the things that I
realized in the process of doinga Guinness attempt is how
privileged it is to even make aGuinness attempt. I, I don't
know. I mean, there are over65,000 Guinness World Records.
So, you know, I just know aboutthe one that I did, but it, I
(46:10):
think a lot of Guinness attemptsrequire time, they require
money. They require a communityof people to support you. In
this case, I needed at least 112people to sign a witness form,
right? I need people to opentheir doors for me. And so what
I realized is that there arereally such a small percentage
(46:35):
of people on this planet whohave the resources to even make
a Guinness attempt. And so I hadbecause I was walking five or
six miles a day and ridingbusses, and Ls I had a lot of
time to think about that, tothink about, what does it mean
to actually do a Guinnessattempt? And there were people
around me who made sacrifices,right? So my husband is staying
(46:56):
in Asheville for a month. Youknow, my kids are sort of on
their own for a month. My 87year old parents are on their
own for a month, you know, andthe world continues on. So so
for me to be able to take amonth sort of out of my life and
clear my schedule and just walkaround to all these different
places of worship is veryprivileged. I also think it
(47:19):
takes a little bit of luck toachieve a Guinness World Record.
And in my case, I think therewere two points of luck. One was
that Guinness actually emailedme and told me that the record
had changed from 76 to 111 Idon't know how I would have
known that. And if they had nottold me, or if they had told me,
(47:40):
you know, way into the month ofSeptember, I don't think I would
have been successful at myattempt, because I was aiming
for like 95 or 98 or maybe thatwould not have been enough. The
other thing was, not only wasChicago the perfect city, but
September, Chicago in Septemberwas I was the perfect place. I
often tell people my bestdecision in my life, I think,
(48:02):
was marrying my husband, but mysecond best decision may have
been Chicago in September. Sothe weather was amazing. Poured
rain a couple of mornings,sprinkled a couple of other
mornings, but it was just it wasbeautiful. It was sunny. You
know, it was 60s, 70s, maybe low80s. And I really have to
wonder, like, if it had beenrainy and cold the whole time,
(48:24):
would people have been sofriendly and opening their
doors? I don't know, there's noway for me to know. But the
other thing that came out for meis that so many people that I
knew were supporting me. Peoplewere following me on social
media. People were texting me,people from all walks of my
(48:45):
life, right? So my yoga friends,my you know, Warren Wilson,
colleagues from where I used toteach as a professor, the
churches where I've worked,everyone was, you know,
responding on Instagram, likingmy Facebook posts. And there
were a couple of days where Ijust did not feel like getting
up and starting the whole, youknow, set of walking around
(49:08):
again, and I was like, you haveto, because people are waiting
to see what places you visitedtoday. You've got to post it on
social media. And you know, thatmade a difference for me. That
made a real difference. And Idon't think I've ever done
anything in my life where I feltthat supported by so many people
from so many different walks oflife, and that, it made a
(49:32):
difference, and it was reallyspecial, and it's something that
I will carry with me for therest of my life.
Chip Gruen (49:39):
So since you mention it, do you want to share your
social media handles so peoplecan go back and look at these,
some of the posts that you made?
Vicki Garlock (49:46):
Yeah, sure. So you can find me on Instagram,
World Religions for Kids. I'malso on Facebook, World
Religions for Kids. I'm onLinkedIn, I do post there a
little bit. But yeah, you cansimply find Vicki Garlock or
look up World Religions forKids. I am not off the grid by
any stretch, and you can seethings I posted over the course
(50:10):
of the month, and I will becontinuing to post at least over
the next couple of weeks.
Chip Gruen (50:15):
All right, that's great. So actually, I lied. I
want to end with one more littletidbit here, and this is maybe
an exhortation to to listeners,and you can chime in on this.
I'm not asking any of them tovisit 185 places in 30 days. But
the next time that you'rewalking and you walk past a
space and the doors are open, orthere seem to be people around,
(50:36):
stick your nose in, have aconversation with somebody who's
different from you, think aboutthe worldviews of others, right?
Practice empathy for as as yousay, other members of this
amazing species that we're apart of. And I think it'll be a
good experience, and it'llexpand your world.
Vicki Garlock (50:54):
Yeah, totally agree. Couldn't have said it
better myself.
Chip Gruen (50:58):
Well, thank you so much, Vicki, it's always great
to catch up and congratulationson the record, and here is to
all of your future work. We lookforward to seeing what you do
next.
Vicki Garlock (51:09):
Thank you so much.
Chip Gruen (51:12):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
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(51:33):
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We look forward to seeing younext time.
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host Chip
Gruen. Today we have a returningguest, Vicki Garlock. You might
remember her as the founder ofthe World Religions for Kids.
She works with religiousliteracy, particularly geared
towards elementary children. Asa speaker and educator on these
(00:27):
topics, she's published a numberof different books, including
"The ABCs of the World'sReligions," which is a picture
book about religious literacy.
"We All Have Sacred Spaces,"which obviously deals with
sacred spaces and places ofritual practice. She's trained,
actually, as a cognitivepsychologist, holding a PhD in
cognitive psychology, but hasworked in multi faith children's
(00:51):
ministry, thinking aboutpluralism, about interfaith
understanding, and, mostimportantly about religious
literacy for quite a long time.
The reason that she is back onReligionWise is that she just
completed something that is kindof unfathomable, hard for me to
get my head around, but she justcompleted an attempt and a
(01:16):
successful attempt, at theGuinness Book of World Records
most sacred sites visited, orplaces of worship visited within
a calendar month. And shevisited 185 different sacred
spaces in and around theenvirons of Chicago, Illinois,
(01:37):
within the month of September.
So I thought it would be greatto have her come on and talk not
only about that record and aboutwhat it means, but the values
behind the attempt itself, whatshe learned along the way, and
to share some of the experiencesthat that really intense 30 days
of work encompassed. I was superhappy to sit down and talk to
(01:59):
Vicki about this, and hope youenjoy the conversation. Vicki
Garlock, thanks for coming backon to ReligionWise.
Vicki Garlock (02:09):
Thanks for having me.
Chip Gruen (02:11):
All right. So this 185 places of worship in a
month. I mean, that's a lot, andof course, that was what was
necessary, right, to set therecord with Guinness. But I want
to get a little bit beyond thatand talk about why was this
something that you wanted to do?
Why was this a meaningfulendeavor beyond right, that that
original premise of setting therecord?
Vicki Garlock (02:37):
Yeah, so I think that from the very beginning, I
was not convinced that I wouldbe able to break the Guinness
World Record. It took a longtime to get the rules for my
attempt, and I just couldn'tquite imagine, despite all my
preparation, what it was goingto look like when I actually got
on the ground in Chicago. And sofor me, it always had to be
(03:01):
about something more than theGuinness World Record. And
initially my idea was that I wasreally interested in lifting up
the religious diversity, thereligious diversity in just, you
know, US city that's in themiddle of the Midwest. And I was
also interested in sharingpeople's sacred spaces, right?
(03:23):
How do we create sacred spaces?
What's the importance of thesesacred spaces? How do we create
meaningful places where peoplegather to live into their faith?
So, and that all happened, Ithink, and that was good, and it
was fun. And I think to acertain extent, I did accomplish
that, but there was somethingmore that ended up coming out of
it, and that was makingconnections with all of these
(03:46):
people. So one of the thingsthat Guinness required, they
required three forms ofverification for every place
that I visited, they required atimestamp selfie, then they
required a quick video of theplace of worship, and they
required verification form, awitness form that someone would
sign saying that they saw me onthat date and on that time in
(04:11):
that place. And that meant thatI had to connect with someone at
each place of worship. And thatturned out to be the most
amazing part of this journey,because I met over 185 people.
And sometimes I was meeting thefaith leader, right, the Imam,
the minister, the rabbi, butsometimes I was meeting the
(04:36):
building manager, the woman whocleaned the space, the
locksmith. And so that turnedout to be a really important and
moving part of the wholeexperience. And so when all was
said and done, I was super happyto have earned the Guinness
World Record. But it reallyended up being the icing on the
(04:58):
cake for me.
Chip Gruen (05:01):
So you mentioned this a little bit, and you know,
this is, this is my academiccoming out, but thinking about
like, definitions andparameters. And I know that you
had conversations with Guinness,but I think it's a bigger
question than that, about whatcounts as a sacred space, about
when we're thinking about how wedefine, you know, what meets the
(05:25):
bar, right? Obviously, this isreally, well, I mean, maybe not
so obviously, right? Because forsome religious traditions, a lot
of the ones that people think ofwhen they think of world
religions, right? There's aplace, and as I always say, a
guy in a pointy hat, right, thatyou can kind of point to.
Vicki Garlock (05:40):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (05:41):
It's bigger than that, right? So can you talk a
little bit about how you madesome of those decisions about
what counts and, and whatparameters you had to, you had
to live with and, and maybesome, you know, some of the
places that were beyond thenormal expectation of what we
think of when we think of aritual space or a sacred space.
Vicki Garlock (05:59):
So when all was said and done, like when I
actually looked at the rules, itwas not just places of worship,
it was also places of study. Andso they would have counted
yeshivas if I had been able togo there. But when all was said
and done, I felt like Guinnessaccepted and adopted a pretty
(06:21):
broad range of what would count.
So for example, if people usedthe space as a place of worship,
even though that was notnecessarily the only thing that
happened in that building or inthat space that counted. So I
ended up at some reallyinteresting places. So first of
all, yes, free standing,churches, synagogues, that was
(06:44):
all sort of obvious, right? Butwhen I went to places that were
in storefronts. So for example,many non denominational churches
are just in the storefront.
There are Buddhist centers thatare just in the storefront. All
of those counted. I also someplaces meet on Sunday mornings
(07:07):
in school auditoriums, right? IfI went on Sunday morning, they
were set up for Sunday service.
Those places counted. I went tothere's this really interesting
phenomenon, and I don't know ifit happens in all cities, but it
certainly happens in Chicago.
Many of the people who serve asdrivers, right, like Uber
drivers, Lyft drivers, privatevehicles, are Muslim, and so
(07:30):
they're driving around the cityall day. And so there are
several places that the topfloor right, the ground level,
floor is a restaurant. It's arestaurant where they serve
ethnic food, and then there's amasjid in the basement, so that
these drivers can stop by andthey can eat, and then they can
buzz downstairs and pray. Andso, you know, I was not able to
(07:54):
take a photo of the masjiddownstairs in the basement,
right? But I took a timestampselfie in front of the
restaurant. I took a video infront of the restaurant, and I
said, there is a masjid in thebasement of this restaurant, and
someone at the restaurant signedto affirm that I was there and
that there was a masjid in thebasement, and Guinness counted
that. So, you know, I felt likein many respects, they were
(08:20):
pretty open and accepting aboutall of those spaces. The other
one that came up is there is achurch called Urban Village.
It's kind of out of Wicker Park,but they meet on Sunday mornings
at The Den Theatre. And The DenTheatre is a multi theater
complex at this point. I thinkwhen the guy bought it many
(08:41):
years ago, it was just onelittle theater. And they bring
in all kinds. I mean, they havea talent agent. They bring in
all kinds of amazing acts, likecomedians that you and I have
heard of, people who have theirown shows on Netflix, etc, etc.
But on Sunday morning, you know,who's going to see a comedian on
Sunday morning? No one. And sothey rent to this guy from Urban
(09:02):
Village church. And so I postedthat on social media that, you
know, Oh, guess what? You know,I was at The Den Theatre, and
they have a church there. Andpeople were amazed, because
people in Chicago have been toThe Den Theatre to see
comedians. They had no ideathere was a church in one of
those theaters on Sundaymorning. So that counted, right?
(09:24):
Because I did the verificationthat I needed to do, and they
signed that there's a churchthere on Sunday mornings. So in
those ways, I felt like Guinnesswas, at that point, pretty
accepting of most of the placesthat I went to.
Chip Gruen (09:38):
So the companion question there, on the one hand,
it's the sacred space, or theplace of worship, etc, or the
place of study in some cases,but then the corollary to that
is what counts as a religion aswell, right? Like that, there
are things that I think I wouldsay, serve the function of
religion, but maybe they don'tconsider themselves a religious
(10:00):
group, or we might read them assort of cultural I mean,
religion is a famously kind ofwesternized term. Did you run
into any issues there?
Vicki Garlock (10:11):
Yeah, so there are some places that so no
matter how broad you get interms of how you define religion
or how you define sacred spacesor places of worship, there's
always going to be something onthe edges, right? So many years
ago, I went to, you know, justsort of this fun talk, and it
was this guy talking aboutsports as religion, and he's a
(10:32):
Cubs fan, as am I. So it reallyresonated with me and spoke to
me. But, you know, he said, ifyou look at many of the
qualities of religion, right,being a sports fan is your
religion in in some ways. Andso, yes, so there are some
places that I went to that, youknow, I would call them a
religion. They would not callthemselves a religion, or they
(10:55):
balk at being called a religion.
And as you say, that's a verywestern term, right? So, you
know, even some people whofollow Hinduism, for example,
right, balk at being called areligion or Buddhism, they'll
say, Well, it's a philosophy andso and so, I think that in this
particular case, you know,Guinness and I got to decide
(11:18):
what was the religion, andthat's sort of what we went
with. But yeah, I think nomatter how broad you get, there
are always places that eitherthey themselves balk at being
called a religion, or someonefrom the outside would say, I
don't know if that's really areligion.
Chip Gruen (11:36):
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 beon our listeners minds. It's
like, why Chicago? I mean, Igrew up in Louisville, Kentucky,
so Chicago was the big city forme. It was the, you know, five
hours away, six hours away. AndI, you know, to this day, just
(11:57):
adore the city of Chicago forlots of reasons, but, but why
Chicago for you? I mean, is thishistorical? Is this personal?
What's going on?
Vicki Garlock (12:08):
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 initialidea was that someone would do
this attempt with me. I reallynever planned to do it myself,
(12:28):
but I couldn't find anybody whowanted to take a month off. But
of course, the initial thingthat everybody said is, you need
to go to New York. Go to NewYork City. And, you know, I have
colleagues at the interfacecenter of New York and and the
more I thought about it, themore it felt hard. I don't
really know New York City. Ihave a couple of people that I
(12:50):
know who live there. It's sobig. And so I was like, Maybe I
should look at Atlanta. And so Ilooked at Atlanta, because I
live in Asheville, so that's theclosest really big city for us,
right? And I looked at Atlanta,and the problem with Atlanta was
that things are so spread out inAtlanta, there are a lot of
churches and a few synagoguesdowntown, but everything else
(13:13):
was really spread out. And Ithought, I'm not going to have
time like I'm not going to havetime to be driving all around. I
also looked at Washington, DC,and it was the same thing,
right? There's, you know, a lotof churches and synagogues sort
of close in, but then you're,you have to drive, you have to
go to Maryland, you have to goto Virginia. And I'm like,
that's just going to be too muchdriving. Then I started looking
(13:37):
at Chicago, and it was perfectin many ways, so there's a lot
of diversity in a prettyconfined area. I also grew up
about 60 miles south of Chicago,not considered a suburb. I grew
up in Kankakee, Illinois. It'sthe middle of corn country, but
my parents grew up in theChicago suburbs. I have lots of
(13:58):
high school friends. Most of myhigh school friends are still in
the area, and at the time, Ithought, well, maybe they could
help me, right? They could meetme, or I could, you know,
commandeer some of my friends.
And so Chicago just made a lotof sense. And because I had
grown up in the area, watchingtelevision stations out of
Chicago, the streets were sortof familiar to me, the
(14:19):
neighborhoods were sort offamiliar to me, there was just
enough familiarity to make itfeel doable. As it turned out,
at the end of July, I found outthat one of the rules that
Guinness had for my attempt wasthat I could not use a personal
vehicle or the vehicle of afriend at all. And so
(14:39):
unbeknownst to me, I got very atthe time. I got really lucky,
because Chicago has an amazingmass transit system, right? They
have a great bus line, and theyhave a whole system of L trains.
And so I ended up taking over 65bus rides. And over 65 L rides,
in addition to walking five orsix miles a day. So when all was
(15:05):
said and done, I'm not sure Icould have successfully achieved
a Guinness World Record if Ihadn't been in Chicago. I
probably could have done it inNew York City. Would have been
hard for me personally, becauseI don't know it very well, but
Chicago ended up beingabsolutely the perfect place.
Chip Gruen (15:27):
And I'll say, given the you know, the prominence,
not not that these wereconnected institutionally to
what you do, but the prominenceof the Parliament of World
Religions in the late 19thcentury and the the University
of Chicago religious studies,the legacy there. I mean, I
don't know, it seems kind ofpoetic that you would do this
(15:47):
thing in Chicago as well.
Vicki Garlock (15:49):
Yeah. I mean, it really is an, you know, you say
you grew up in Louisville. Imean, Louisville is an amazing,
right, sort of interfaith, multifaith place, but so is Chicago,
and I also had a lot ofcolleagues in Chicago. I was in
touch, for example, with someonefrom Interfaith America, and she
came and walked around with mefor one day, Vanessa Avery, who
(16:13):
is from Sacred Spaces, Inc, sheis in sort of the New York area,
but she is often in Chicago. Andso she was in Chicago during the
time that I was in Chicago inSeptember. And so she walked
around with me for a day. I havea long ago interfaith colleague
who, you know, went to theUniversity of Chicago, and so I
(16:33):
got to see him one day. So itwas really fun to connect with,
you know, colleagues that I hadin Chicago as well, and it is
amaze...Chicago is amazinglydiverse. I mean, it was, it was
really incredible.
Chip Gruen (16:47):
So let's dig a little bit deeper into some of
the logistics of reaching out to185 different communities. And
you know what? What is theinitial vetting look like? What
does initial contact look like?
What was the reaction? Werepeople like, oh, yeah, that
sounds great. Or were there somecommunities that are like, we
(17:09):
don't want to have anything todo with this at all, you know.
Give me some logistics here.
Vicki Garlock (17:15):
Yeah. So this is, you know, in in some ways, I
visited 185 places that countedfor the Guinness World Record.
And I also visited some extraplaces that where I couldn't get
the evidence I needed, and sothey didn't count towards the
record. So in visiting over 185places, I would say that each
story was sort of different. Sowhat I did was I started by
(17:38):
creating literally twodimensional maps that I printed
out, which, of course, my youngadult children thought was
hilarious that I was printingout two dimensional maps. And I
you can't just sort of Googleplaces of worship, right? I had
to create the maps. So I wouldstart with churches, because
there are the most of thosewhich I knew in advance. And so
(17:59):
I would print out a map of allthe churches in the small
neighborhood, and then I wouldadd in the synagogues, the
temples, you know, I would justthe, you know, other places of
worship. So once I had this map,then I would go to the website,
their websites, and I would findan email address, and I would
email them, you know, Hi, I'mVicki Gorlock. I'm trying to get
a Guinness World Record. And,you know, I'm going to be in
(18:21):
your area on such and such aday. Can I stop by? And so a
certain percentage of peoplewould email me back then, it was
mostly larger churches who hadan administrative assistant who
was there, you know, 15, 20, 25or 40 hours a week, right? And
so, you know, so that was fine.
I would set up a time, and Iwould just start filling in my
(18:42):
map, but then I would emailpeople again, and I would email
people a second time, and am Ilike, oh, you might have missed
my email. And so then I got afew 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 Iwould call people. I would call
people and leave a phonemessage. And what was
(19:03):
interesting was there were a lotof places that have young adult
administrative assistants thatare part time, right? So they
looked at the email and theywere just, you know, too long,
didn't read, right? But once Igot them on the phone, they were
like, oh, yeah, I kind of sawyour email. Yeah, that's pretty
cool. And so then I got you knowmore by making phone calls.
(19:25):
There were some people along theway who politely declined. They
would email me back and say,Yeah, this isn't something we
want to be a part of. And thatwas fine. They mostly didn't say
why. Maybe they thought it wasgimmicky, or, you know, they
don't they're not normally thereduring the week, or who knows
what. So there was that. But thesecond part of the story, before
(19:49):
I started, I had madeappointments with probably about
85 places. So the originalrecord was 76 and so in theory,
85 was technically enough. But,you know, I probably wanted to
pad that. I was gonna go forabout 95, 98 maybe 100 places at
(20:09):
the most. But on Friday,September 5, I had been going
around Chicago now for three orfour days, Guinness emailed me
and said, someone else in Indiaalready broke the record, and
it's not 76 anymore. It's 111 soif you want to break the record,
you have to go to at least 112.
So I'm, I'm there, I'm alreadygot my plan. I've got my whole
(20:33):
schedule. I'm going to add a fewmore, and good to go. Nope. So
my initial reaction was topanic. 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 goingto do this. Like, I already
emailed and emailed again andcalled these people. So I
decided that what I should dowas I had no one on that first
(20:56):
Saturday, which I think wasSeptember 6. And I'm like, you
can't just sit around all day.
You got to get 112 you got tothink of something. So okay,
Saturday. Where am I going to goon a Saturday? Seventh Day
Adventist churches, right? Theyare there on a Saturday. So I
google Seventh Day Adventistchurches, and sure enough,
(21:16):
there's one not very far fromwhere I'm staying. So I get up
on Saturday morning and I takethe bus up to this Seventh Day
Adventist Church. And it wasthis little, tiny church, and
during the week, it's an artgallery. And then on Saturday
mornings, this congregationcomes in, they set up their
coffee table, they arrange thechairs, their minister comes in,
(21:37):
and they create a worship spacefor themselves on Saturdays. So
I walk in and I explain that I'mtrying to get this Guinness
World Record. They were so niceto me, and they were so excited.
And so I got all the evidencethat I needed for that space.
But in the meantime, this guysays to me, oh my gosh, there's
like, a bunch of other SeventhDay Adventist churches that you
(21:59):
really need to go visit. And sohe said, Look, there's two here,
there's one here, there'sanother one. So I was like,
okay, so I get on the bus, and Igo further north, and I find
this huge Seventh Day AdventistChurch. It was actually Spanish
Seventh Day Adventist Church,right? So it's called Iglesia
Adventista del Septimo Dia. So Iwalk in and I explain to these
(22:24):
women greeters that are standingthere that I'm trying to get
this Guinness World Record, andthey're just like, we, we don't
know what you're talking about.
And also, like, we are notsigning any forms, and we need
to get Jordy maybe. Okay, sothey like on this walkie talkie,
or like this guy, Jordy, comeswalking down the stairs, right?
And I explain it to him, andhe's totally into it. He said,
(22:46):
Oh, he's like, check this out.
He said, we're gonna get two inthe same building. He said,
because we have twocongregations here. And he said,
the upstairs, congregation is inSpanish. The service is in
Spanish. Everything's inSpanish. And he said, and then
we have what's called secondgeneration place of worship
(23:08):
downstairs. It's modern, it hasa band, and it's in English,
because all of these people'schildren do not want to worship
in Spanish. They want to worshipin English. So I got two there,
and then I went to anotherSeventh Day Adventist Church,
and I stayed for their worshipservice, and afterwards I got
all my evidence. So once I hadthat model right where I could
(23:28):
show up and explain what I wasdoing and meet people where they
were at, when they were there,the whole thing opened up for
me, and I realized, and noteveryone said yes, and not
everyone was that enthusiastic,but the vast majority of people
were, and they gave me othersuggestions, and they gave me
(23:49):
the evidence that I needed. Andso I went to four historically
Black churches on Sundaymorning, and then I just sort of
cranked it up. And so every dayI went to the places I had
appointments, but I also justrang doorbells and knocked on
doors and got a whole bunch ofsignatures, and that's how I got
to 185 which was never my plan.
Chip Gruen (24:12):
Wow, wow. Yeah, I mean, I think probably people
can hear it in your voice. Whata extrovert adn lively person
you are, but I'm sitting herethinking, oh my gosh. I could
not take that rejection. I couldnot take a month's worth of
rejection, you know, over andover, even if, like, 90% of
(24:36):
people were very friendly, itwould, it would still, it would
still bug me. But,
Vicki Garlock (24:40):
Well, you know, that's what they say, though,
right? Is, how are yousuccessful at anything? I mean,
most of the time you'resuccessful at anything because
you've been able to move throughwhatever form of rejection there
is. I mean, you're in academia,you know, you submit papers and
they get rejected. Or thesereviewers, you know that look at
them, they just have all thesechanges and edits. So I think
(25:02):
that's always part of theprocess of, quote, unquote,
being successful. It's alwayspart of the process in any big
project as well. And so this wassort of both of those things,
right, trying to be successfulat a big project.
Chip Gruen (25:17):
So I want to connect a couple of dots that you've
mentioned, because you, you'vementioned, obviously, Sundays
are relatively easy. You'vementioned Saturdays. You know,
Fridays we can imagine would notbe as difficult. But then you
have Monday through Thursday.
And I know that you had sometrepidation, of, like, all
right, what am I going to do?
Because you don't have to go toa worship service, right? You
(25:38):
just have so you don't, youdidn't need that, but still, you
know, as you, as you mentioned,some of these places end up
being dark, you know, for thoseother for four days a week. But
now, as you're talking about it,and you're talking about
locksmiths and janitors andadministrative assistants, I got
to think, at this point, lookingback, that those connections you
made Monday through Thursdaymight have been some of the
(25:59):
richest, most interesting,because you are running to
people you didn't think youwould run into.
Vicki Garlock (26:03):
Oh, absolutely.
So the first thing I'll say isthat Saturdays and Sundays were
tricky in their own way,because, you know, and I know,
because I've worked at a churchpart time, you know, off and on
for the last 15 years. Sobecause people are busy, right?
So you can't just, like, show upin the middle of their worship
service. If you do, you need tostay for the whole thing, you
(26:25):
know, and then get someone tosign. And in the morning they're
they're preparing, right? So itwas more likely that there would
be people at a masjid on aFriday afternoon, but they got
their own thing going on. SoFriday, Saturday and Sunday was
tricky for those reasons, right?
Monday through Thursday wastricky because, as you point
(26:47):
out, you know, many timesnobody's there, right? Many
ministers of small faithcommunities have full time jobs,
right? They're just part timeministers on Wednesday night and
Sunday mornings. And so that'swhere two things happened. One,
people would agree to meet me,which was very lovely. But then
I would meet all these otherpeople, and I got to tell you,
(27:09):
one of the most amazing set ofinteractions I had was with
building managers. So thebuilding that's when they're
there. They're there Mondaythrough Thursday, right cleaning
and getting the buildingprepared. And there are some big
buildings in Chicago, right? Bigplaces of worship, and
somebody's got to take care ofthose, those spaces, and it's a
(27:30):
lot. And so these people werethere, and they would give me
these 45 minute tours, right? Soone of the things that was so
amazing, and one of the reasonswhy I think people were so
excited and enthusiastic wasbecause they just felt seen,
right? I mean, they're doing allthis hard work all the time,
(27:51):
many times, for a smallcongregation, and it feels like
no one's ever paying attention,that nobody even knows they're
there. And here I was showing upand, you know, looking at their
space and commenting on theirsanctuary. Every single person I
met was proud of theirsanctuary, was proud of their
sacred space, was proud of theirplace of worship. And it could
(28:13):
have been the most simplelittle, you know, a classroom
they had that they had set up asa Buddhist center to these
massive, you know, taking up awhole block church. It didn't
matter. Everyone was reallyconnected to their place of
worship, and they were reallyexcited to share that with
(28:34):
someone, and they were reallyexcited that someone cared
enough to take a tour and andlisten and and, and so yeah, the
the commitment that people haveto these communities and these
places was really one of theunexpected stories for me. And
as it turns out, one of the beststories, one of the most moving
(28:56):
stories, and one of the mostspecial stories that came out of
this attempt.
Chip Gruen (29:03):
So thinking about that which is unexpected, let's
talk about the sort of, theflavor of the diversity itself.
Because you knew going intothis, you'd go to a Catholic
church, right? You'd go to anOrthodox synagogue, you would
go, you know, like there wouldbe things that we could have put
on our bingo cards right awayand but you know, particularly
this way of getting to knowneighborhoods that you've
(29:25):
described, and sort of gettingon the ground and then figuring
out what you're doing, ratherthan have everything planned
out...
Vicki Garlock (29:32):
Right.
Chip Gruen (29:33):
I gotta think that you're running into religious
communities that not only youdidn't know existed in Chicago,
but maybe you didn't knowexisted, period, right? So can
you share with us some of thethe more you know, unexpected
religious communities that youran into?
Vicki Garlock (29:51):
Sure. So I live in Asheville, North Carolina,
which, let's call that, about100,000 people, and we're fairly
diverse. We have threesynagogues here. We have several
Buddhist centers. We have aHindu temple that's not far
away. We have a Greek OrthodoxChurch. And so I, you know, I've
been to visit, I have visitedall of those places. And so, as
(30:13):
you say, you know, that was thebingo card. But there were, I
think there were two points ofreal 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 iswithin a tradition, right? So
(30:34):
yes, we have one Greek OrthodoxChurch here in Asheville, and
there are many, many Orthodoxchurches in Chicago, and a lot
of them were near where I wasstaying for the first two weeks.
You literally could not walkmore than a couple of blocks,
and there would be anotherOrthodox church. And these
Orthodox churches were set up tomeet the needs of a particular
(30:58):
community that spoke aparticular language. So there's
Greek Orthodox churches andservices are in Greek. There's
Ukrainian Orthodox churches andtheir services are in Ukrainian.
There are Slavic Orthodoxchurches and their services are
in a created language, adesigned language called Church
Slavonic, which I had never evenheard of before I went up there.
(31:19):
So that was interesting. Also,we have one Orthodox synagogue
here, and it is Chabad LubavitchShul. And so that's fine. That
was my experience with OrthodoxJudaism. But when I got to
Chicago, I realized that evenwithin the Orthodox community,
there are different versions ofOrthodox Judaism, right? So I
(31:40):
went to two modern Orthodoxsynagogues. I went to an
Orthodox synagogue notassociated with Chabad
Lubovitch, right? And then, ofcourse, there are many Chabad
Lubovitch centers throughoutChicago, so that was
interesting, sort of the extentof intra faith. And then there
were a few places I was able tovisit that we just don't have in
(32:02):
Asheville, and maybe not even inNorth Carolina, I don't know.
But, for example, the BrahmaKumaris. We don't have a Brahma
Kumaris meditation center here,and so I was able to learn a
little bit more about that. Wealso do not have an ISKCON here
in Asheville. So ISKCON standsfor the International Society
(32:22):
for Krishna Consciousness,which, you know, I think lay
people would just call the HareKrishnas. They have a big they
have more than one, but theyhave a big ISKCON center in the
sort of downtown area. And theydo Sunday night caretans and
vegetarian feasts. And so I wentfor the whole evening. And, you
know, danced and did caretan,and it was, it was really fun.
(32:46):
So that was another one. Also,we do have a Christian Scientist
church here in Asheville, butI've never been, not for any
particular reason, it's justnever happened. They have a huge
Christian Science church rightin downtown Chicago, called the
17th Church of Christ Scientist.
And so they were very receptive.
They were, they were one of thepeople that emailed me back
(33:07):
right away and said, Oh yes,come when you're in the loop,
when you're in the downtownarea. And also, if you want to,
you can come to our Wednesdaynight testimony meeting. And I
was like, okay, so I wasactually, I actually ended up,
in addition to visiting over 185places, I actually attended over
20 worship services of varioussorts, and two of them were
(33:31):
testimony Wednesday eveningtestimony meetings at Christian
Science churches. One of themwas this big downtown church,
and the other one was inEvanston and so and so that was
a nice opportunity for me to beable to do that. I was also
invited to attend I was at a oneof the many Greek Orthodox
churches. I think I probablyvisited four or five Greek
(33:53):
Orthodox churches, and this onewas a little bit north of
downtown, and they just happenedto be doing a blessing of the
waters on the shores of LakeMichigan. And they would throw a
cross into Lake Michigan, andthe kids would, you know, swim
out and try to get the cross.
And so it was this sort of, youknow, ritual for blessing of the
waters, and then this fun kidsactivity. And so he's like, you
(34:15):
can come if you want to. And soI went and took a bunch of
photos, and, you know, just hadthis opportunity to, you know,
engage in a ritual practice thatI probably wouldn't have just
here in Asheville.
Chip Gruen (34:30):
So talking about these different groups, and
you've mentioned thistangentially 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 goingto be heightened by the fact
that you're a woman. So I'mwondering, you know, I mean,
(34:53):
obviously religious literacy isyour thing, right? So that you
didn't go into this blind, youknew, but how did you prepare
for that? Was this ever aninsurmountable boundary for you?
You know, what was yourexperience like around those
sorts of you know, expectationsfor for visitors to these
places?
Vicki Garlock (35:10):
Yeah, so because I have visited many places of
worship in the past and gone toservices, I felt pretty
competent, and I felt like Ipretty much knew what the
expectations were. I diddefinitely pack a couple of
lightweight shirts that weretotally long sleeve, so that my
arms would be covered or I had acouple sweaters with me. I also
(35:34):
packed several, you know, hijabsand scarves and things that I
could use on the fly as a hijab.
So, and I also know that in manyplaces, you need to take your
shoes off, so I made sure thatmy socks didn't have holes in
them, for example. So some ofthat stuff I could sort of, you
know, manage on the front end.
The other thing I'll say is thatif you are not there for a
(35:57):
worship service, things change alittle bit, right? So if I walk
into a masjid and it's notprayer time, they're not as
picky about whether or not myhead is covered as they would
be, for example, when I attendeda Jummah service, right? And so
I often when I'm in a masjid,even if it's not prayer time, I
(36:21):
put a scarf around, just kind ofloosely around my head, just out
of respect. And I often knowsort of the greetings that I'm
supposed to use, although likethe Hare Krishnas, you know, so
So, for example, I know it wasRosh Hashanah the Jewish
holidays were starting. RoshHashanah started on September 22
(36:41):
so I know to say Shana Tova. AndJews really appreciate it when
you recognize their holidays.
You know, I know when you entera masjid, you can say as-salamu
alaykum, and things like that.
But it turns out that you knowthere are other greetings. So in
the Brahma Kumaris tradition,the greeting is Om Shanti. And
so I say Om Shanti, and you sayOm Shanti back. And that means
(37:04):
we're recognizing each other asBrahma Kumaris. The same thing
with Hare Krishnas, right? Whenyou see someone, you say Hare
Krishna, they say Hare Krishnaback. And so I learned some new
sort of greetings and littlepolite interactions like that.
So yeah, I would say that umsort of, in general, people were
(37:24):
very welcoming. So I, you know,present as what I am, which is a
white, older woman. And I thinkthat, you know, people treated
me as such, right? And I thinkin many cases, people were
surprised that I knew as much asI did, right? So they would be
explaining to me, Well, youknow, this is where the Imam
(37:45):
does the, you know, we kind ofcall it a sermon. Well, no, you
know, it's the khutbah, and Isort of know those, and this
faces Mecca. And so they weresort of, in many cases,
surprised at what I knew.
Because, you know, they dealwith a lot of people who know
little to nothing about abouttheir tradition. It was
interesting to go to some of thedifferent Buddhist centers as
(38:08):
well, because the meditationpractices are different at each
place. So at the Kadampa center,right? It was a 30 minute
meditation, and some of it wasguided meditation, and then
there was a brief teaching,right? So that was pretty short,
but I went to the Chicago ZenCenter in Evanston, and you
know, that was a two hour thing,right? It's 20 minutes of silent
(38:29):
sitting, not guided meditation,facing a wall. And then, you
know, five minutes of walkingmeditation called kinhin. And
then 25 minutes of sittingmeditation, facing a wall, five
minutes of walking, 25 minutes.
So that's a serious practice.
That is their beginningpractice, right? So normally
their practice is 55 minutes ofsitting. I was there on
(38:51):
beginner's night, and so it'salways interesting to see the
ways in which faith communitiespractice, even in Christian
churches, the way you pass thepeace varies from church to
church. Some churches arehugging churches, and some
churches are shake your handchurches, and some churches
(39:11):
because, I think probablybecause of the pandemic, you
literally just, you know, make apeace sign across to each other,
right? And it's notdenominational. It is, from what
I can tell, it's just sort ofchurch by church. The same thing
is true for communion, right, orthe Eucharist, right? Each
church kind of has their own wayof doing it, and at some point
(39:32):
you learn to follow alongsurreptitiously and do what
everybody else does. Hopefullyyou don't have to go first. And
so I mean, I always it's, that'swhat I love about this business
of religious literacy, is thatthere's always more to learn.
There's I learned somethingevery single time, every single
day. And of course, that's whatI love about it. That's what
(39:55):
makes other peopleuncomfortable, but that's what I
love about it.
Chip Gruen (40:00):
So there are obviously lots of personal
experiences that you had here,and maybe you'll get the
opportunity to tell a few moreof those stories. But I want to
get back to the Guinness, right?
The whole impetus for thisthing. What do you hope this
record accomplishes? Is it aboutraising awareness of religious
diversity? Is it about a largerconversation about religious
(40:23):
literacy and pluralism? Is theresomething else like, what is the
function of the sort of thepublicity that this gets,...
Vicki Garlock (40:33):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (40:34):
...that's important to you?
Vicki Garlock (40:36):
So I think that that changed over time, and I
also think it continues toevolve. So, you know, on the one
hand. So initially, the way Ifound out about this record is
that someone in India hadestablished the record for
visiting the most places ofworship in a single month. And
Religion News Service did astory about it. I think he
(41:00):
actually did the record in 2022but then it had to be certified
by Guinness. And the story, Ithink, came out in 2023 and it
was 76 and so as soon as I readthe article, I looked at my
husband and I said, I think Icould beat that. Now I didn't
know what I was talking about.
So initially, I think it wasjust like a cool thing to do. I
just thought it would be like areally fun thing to do, like, oh
(41:22):
my gosh, could I actually have aGuinness World Record? But then,
as I really delved into it anddecided on Chicago and started
planning for it, I thought, Wow.
You know, I'm what I'm reallyinterested in is religious
diversity, and lifting upreligious diversity, and also
the diversity of spaces, right?
You know, big churches, littlechurches, you know, tiny
(41:46):
Buddhist centers. And so when Iwas planning for it, that was
really my motivation, right? Andthat's the business that I'm in.
And I can, you know, learnsomething, I can visit some cool
spaces, I can take some funphotos. It's all going to be
good, and it's on brand for me.
(42:06):
But what happened when I wasthere was that I realized that
these connections that I wasmaking with these folks who were
so connected to their space,right, that that is actually the
story that is now resonatingwith me the most, and it was
very interesting to be inChicago at this time, right? So
(42:29):
what's on the news? What's onthe Chicago news all the time,
and this has been true fordecades, is crime, right? So my
high school friends don't evengo into the city, right? Because
they're afraid of many places,and they've just the news just
plays up all this crime murdersall the time. And now on top of
(42:49):
that, we have the Trumpadministration bringing in ICE
right and partly to clean up thecrime in Chicago and partly to
deal with immigration issues.
And so that was on the newsevery night. Every night the
Chicago news is about crime, andit's about ICE coming in and
what neighborhoods they weregoing to be in, and how the
counter protests to thatprotests were going to go and so
(43:11):
it was really interesting tothen, for me as an individual,
to be walking around Chicagoliterally all day every day,
riding busses, riding the L,walking five to six miles a day,
you know, meeting anywhere from10 to 20 people a day and having
these amazing interactions. Andit was such a counter narrative
(43:34):
to the broader media narrativethat was happening at the same
time. And so what it's reallybrought up for me is, you know,
humans are really amazing, andwe 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'ttalk to one another, and we have
(43:56):
no way to bridge these divides,and family holidays are ruined
because families are in twodifferent camps. And what I was
seeing was that there's a lot ofpeople out there who are working
really hard every day in theirfaith communities, in their
places of worship, in theirneighborhoods. Many, many places
(44:16):
of worship are, you know,feeding the hungry, helping to
house the unhoused. They'rereally doing ministries in their
neighborhoods and in theircommunities, and they're very
proud of that, and they're veryproud of the way in which their
place of worship is part ofthat, right? So for me, now the
narrative is, how do we liftthat up? How do we remember that
(44:39):
humans are really amazing. Theycan be so creative, so kind, so
compassionate, so hard working,and why is that getting lost in
the broader media narrativesthat we have today? And how do
we lift up those stories? How dowe help ourselves, remember that
(44:59):
we're amazing. We're an amazingspecies. And just it's not that
we as individuals are ...all ofus are amazing and can are
capable of doing amazing things.
And how do we remember that? Andhow do we lift those stories up?
So that, interestingly enough,has become the narrative that is
(45:22):
most interesting to me now.
Chip Gruen (45:27):
All right, so we're nearing the end of our time, so
I just want to end up with, youknow, what else would you like
to talk about, about thisexperience? What else, what are
we missing here that you thinkis is really key in
understanding, you know, this185 places in 30 days and and
(45:47):
what that meant for you, and howthat was made possible?
Vicki Garlock (45:49):
Yeah, so I think one of the things that I
realized in the process of doinga Guinness attempt is how
privileged it is to even make aGuinness attempt. I, I don't
know. I mean, there are over65,000 Guinness World Records.
So, you know, I just know aboutthe one that I did, but it, I
(46:10):
think a lot of Guinness attemptsrequire time, they require
money. They require a communityof people to support you. In
this case, I needed at least 112people to sign a witness form,
right? I need people to opentheir doors for me. And so what
I realized is that there arereally such a small percentage
(46:35):
of people on this planet whohave the resources to even make
a Guinness attempt. And so I hadbecause I was walking five or
six miles a day and ridingbusses, and Ls I had a lot of
time to think about that, tothink about, what does it mean
to actually do a Guinnessattempt? And there were people
around me who made sacrifices,right? So my husband is staying
(46:56):
in Asheville for a month. Youknow, my kids are sort of on
their own for a month. My 87year old parents are on their
own for a month, you know, andthe world continues on. So so
for me to be able to take amonth sort of out of my life and
clear my schedule and just walkaround to all these different
places of worship is veryprivileged. I also think it
(47:19):
takes a little bit of luck toachieve a Guinness World Record.
And in my case, I think therewere two points of luck. One was
that Guinness actually emailedme and told me that the record
had changed from 76 to 111 Idon't know how I would have
known that. And if they had nottold me, or if they had told me,
(47:40):
you know, way into the month ofSeptember, I don't think I would
have been successful at myattempt, because I was aiming
for like 95 or 98 or maybe thatwould not have been enough. The
other thing was, not only wasChicago the perfect city, but
September, Chicago in Septemberwas I was the perfect place. I
often tell people my bestdecision in my life, I think,
(48:02):
was marrying my husband, but mysecond best decision may have
been Chicago in September. Sothe weather was amazing. Poured
rain a couple of mornings,sprinkled a couple of other
mornings, but it was just it wasbeautiful. It was sunny. You
know, it was 60s, 70s, maybe low80s. And I really have to
wonder, like, if it had beenrainy and cold the whole time,
(48:24):
would people have been sofriendly and opening their
doors? I don't know, there's noway for me to know. But the
other thing that came out for meis that so many people that I
knew were supporting me. Peoplewere following me on social
media. People were texting me,people from all walks of my
(48:45):
life, right? So my yoga friends,my you know, Warren Wilson,
colleagues from where I used toteach as a professor, the
churches where I've worked,everyone was, you know,
responding on Instagram, likingmy Facebook posts. And there
were a couple of days where Ijust did not feel like getting
up and starting the whole, youknow, set of walking around
(49:08):
again, and I was like, you haveto, because people are waiting
to see what places you visitedtoday. You've got to post it on
social media. And you know, thatmade a difference for me. That
made a real difference. And Idon't think I've ever done
anything in my life where I feltthat supported by so many people
from so many different walks oflife, and that, it made a
(49:32):
difference, and it was reallyspecial, and it's something that
I will carry with me for therest of my life.
Chip Gruen (49:39):
So since you mention it, do you want to share your
social media handles so peoplecan go back and look at these,
some of the posts that you made?
Vicki Garlock (49:46):
Yeah, sure. So you can find me on Instagram,
World Religions for Kids. I'malso on Facebook, World
Religions for Kids. I'm onLinkedIn, I do post there a
little bit. But yeah, you cansimply find Vicki Garlock or
look up World Religions forKids. I am not off the grid by
any stretch, and you can seethings I posted over the course
(50:10):
of the month, and I will becontinuing to post at least over
the next couple of weeks.
Chip Gruen (50:15):
All right, that's great. So actually, I lied. I
want to end with one more littletidbit here, and this is maybe
an exhortation to to listeners,and you can chime in on this.
I'm not asking any of them tovisit 185 places in 30 days. But
the next time that you'rewalking and you walk past a
space and the doors are open, orthere seem to be people around,
(50:36):
stick your nose in, have aconversation with somebody who's
different from you, think aboutthe worldviews of others, right?
Practice empathy for as as yousay, other members of this
amazing species that we're apart of. And I think it'll be a
good experience, and it'llexpand your world.
Vicki Garlock (50:54):
Yeah, totally agree. Couldn't have said it
better myself.
Chip Gruen (50:58):
Well, thank you so much, Vicki, it's always great
to catch up and congratulationson the record, and here is to
all of your future work. We lookforward to seeing what you do
next.
Vicki Garlock (51:09):
Thank you so much.
Chip Gruen (51:12):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com There,you'll find our contact
(51:33):
information, links to otherprogramming and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. Please
subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts.
We look forward to seeing younext time.
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