Growing up in Kankakee, Ill., Vicki Garlock remembers hearing the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow: the ill-fated, barn-dwelling, lantern-kicking bovine scapegoated as the cause of the Great Chicago Fire.
This month marks 154 years since the October 1871 conflagration, which engulfed more than three square miles of the city.
The Great Chicago Fire is remembered as a foundational event in the city’s reputation of resilience. Rebuilding efforts earned Chicago its nickname as the “Second City” (to some, second only to New York, and to others, rebuilt for the second time) and made way for some of the city’s greatest achievements, like the inception of the Parliament of the World’s Religions at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
Today also marks nearly a week since Garlock, an educator and founder of World Religions for Kids, was awarded the Guinness World Record for most places of worship visited in one month.
She spent the month of September visiting 185 religious sites across Chicago, some of which have histories dating back to 1871.
“The resilience of faith communities has been a really interesting side of the narrative for me,” Garlock told Interfaith America, reflecting on the task of rebuilding that many of the faith communities she visited faced after the fire, and how the call to persevere echoes through time. “People figure it out. People are resilient.”
Engaging with diverse communities across the city, Garlock visited houses of worship across traditions, from Christian cathedrals to Sikh gurdwaras to Jewish synagogues. She joined for more than 20 services, including a Buddhist meditation, a Greek orthodox vigil, and Friday prayers at the American Islamic College (AIC).
Her world record attempt featured sacred spaces in art galleries, rented rooms, auditorium-style halls, and basements, and she recognized a spirit of perseverance in people of faith from all different walks of life through countless daily encounters.
Returning to Illinois to tackle this feat was the natural decision for Garlock, who now resides in Asheville, N.C. Chicago, one of the most religiously diverse cities in the nation, is home to nearly 10,000 religious organizations.
“[Chicago] is big enough to be diverse, and the diversity is relatively centralized. There’s not a single moment where I regretted choosing Chicago,” she said.
Garlock’s quest to surpass the world record for most religious sites visited in a month began when she first read about the existing record of 76 sacred visit sites, achieved by Shashank Sharma in 2022.
It wasn’t until a few years later that she had the opportunity to temporarily relocate to Chicago to attempt the record herself. She stayed for two weeks in the city’s Wicker Park neighborhood and another two in the northern suburb of Evanston, with a goal of visiting at least six sacred sites each day.
Garlock’s career-long mission as a children’s author and curriculum developer is to uplift religious diversity and teach children and their parents about the world’s faith traditions. Through her experience building bridges across religious divides, Garlock emphasized that pursuing a Guiness World Record is an act of privilege. “You have to have resources. You have to have time, or money, or a community team.”
Visiting 185 religious sites within a span of 30 days included logging dozens of hours and miles on foot or public transit and seeking out witnesses to certify visits. At one point during mid-September, Garlock learned that someone had set a new record for most religious sites visited in a month, beating out the standing record and raising the benchmark she had to exceed from 76 houses of worship to 111.
She stressed that without her encouraging family, her accommodating workplace, and her knowledge of religious diversity, which helped her navigate sacred spaces with curiosity and care, she would not have been able to pursue this project.
In addition to its manifold challenges, the month-long undertaking also presented opportunities to advocate for religious literacy, whether in stories shared while connecting with faith leaders along the way or in discussing eligible sites with her Guinness judge.
During Garlock’s September 19 visit to the American Islamic College — America’s first Muslim institution of higher education — she was welcomed with a cup of coffee and offered a comfortable seat at a table with the college’s leadership. AIC president Timothy Gianotti shared about the unexpected interfaith encounters of the college’s new-construction campus and recent years-long accreditation process.
“We were the first Muslims they ever met,” he said, speaking of peer reviewers during the accreditation process who came from primarily faith-based institutions. “But by the end of every visit, it was like hugging, and ‘we’ll pray for you.’”
Garlock also recounted stories of St. John Berchmans Catholic parish, which she visited the Monday following the canonization of the first Millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, and a Christian Science testimony meeting downtown, where she was welcomed to share.
For the range of traditions and worldviews she encountered, Garlock came out of the experience eager to uplift the stories of strength and commitment of innumerable people of faith, doing good in their city block and beyond.
“People have been so generous. I mean, they are literally and figuratively opening their doors to me. And it’s people across traditions — Buddhist traditions, Jewish traditions, Orthodox traditions in Christianity, so many Catholic churches,” she said. “That Midwestern hospitality has really come through.”
