Posted to YouTube by Eddie Shaw, an instructor in the Tae Kwon Do Club of the Islamic School of Irving, February 24, 2015.

Posted to YouTube by the Irving Masjid, April 29, 2016.

Great Days of Service (GDS), Irving, Texas, describes itself this way on its home page:

GREAT DAYS OF SERVICE IN IRVING, TEXAS, IS AN INTERFAITH ASSOCIATION OF FAITH COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS UNITED IN SERVING GOD AND COMMUNITY THROUGH RENEWING NEIGHBORHOODS AND AIDING HOMEOWNERS IN THE RESTORATION OF THEIR PROPERTIES.

And on its “About” page, this way:

Great Days of Service is a non-profit association of diverse Irving faith communities, businesses, and civic groups who are united in serving God and community by renewing neighborhoods and aiding homeowners in the restoration of their properties.

The GDS website supports pages displaying Church Partners (there are many — 14 churches listed and one mosque – the Islamic Center of Irving) and Community Partners, a melange of relevant government and the kinds of good-hearted private businesses that anchor the tapestry of small town America.

The Islamic Center of Irving featured recently in an Esquire article — “The Real Muslims of Irving, Texas: With armed protesters outside their mosque and freedom of religion and the right to carry crashing together on their doorstep, Lone Star Muslims just want to say howdy.  Before somebody gets hurt” (by Colby Buzzell, May 9, 2016).  Four months earlier, those armed protesters made the virtual pages of The Dallas Morning News (“Armed protesters gather outside Islamic Center of Irving” by Avi Selk, November 21, 2015).  Work “Ahmed Mohamed”, the student who one day brought the clock-in-a-box to school and by the next, more or less, had achieved global notoriety, into the search string, and you might get this:

Oh, my — and there’s still a $15 million Ahmed Mohamed vs City of Irving lawsuit on the docket.

BackChannels has heard that in the past year– and for the next — one or two churches have dropped out of the ranks of the multi-faith “Great Days of Service” in the wake of a “dust up” with the mosque.

Will details arrive?

Is the “skinny” really needed?

James Ragland writing for The Dallas Morning News (Muslims are now an organized political force in Irving”) noted the following back in May:

Those who keep tabs on voter rolls say the number of Muslim voters has jumped from about 150 two years ago to over 800 in the May 7 election. Of the city’s 92,000 registered voters, about 3,800 — slightly more than 4 percent — identify as Muslims.

But they made up nearly 18 percent of the ballots cast in an election where the turnout was low.

Possibly, this given the direction of those not-so-sacred numbers (indicating growth), it may not hurt the representatives of Irving’s Muslim community to share back into the Christian community the making and posting of participation-and-accomplishment videos having to do with those “Great Days of Service” –(added per the addendum at the top) nor would it hurt the churches to produce and post their own videos on the matter . . . or have a hand in the interfaith making of the next video.

Sigh.

In the medieval mode, religious succession — initially, the ascent or uptake of Christianity displacing (for most) Judaism (source of history and inspiration) and much else — accounts for bloodshed through many ages, but cue the angels (“Aaaaaaah”) and The Enlightenment arrives, the church divides and divides again — and fends off Islam’s incursions in what has become Europe– until within its many domains Northern Ireland quiets down and that seems the end of that part of the bloody story.

But wait: about here enters those “Red Brown Green” malignant narcissists — “Comrades, Nationalist, Islamists” but Kleptocrats (and subscription builders) most of all — and we’re once again on this potentially bloody — and still medieval — merry-go-round.

In the way of the web and YouTube, this video automatically followed the two cited and displayed above:

Posted to YouTube April 29, 2016.

Wikipedia on “Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan”.

Apparently, the fishers of souls continue to count their success in subscriptions and may adjust their talk to compete.

 

Addendum and Mild Retraction – July 10, 2016

There have been other “Great Days of Service — Irving” videos recent within the past two years.  However, the top search results appearing on YouTube come up absent of productions posted by the Christian churches.

This is what BackChannels found:

“Interview: “Great Days of Service” – Post by the City of Irving, April 21, 2016.

“Great Days of Service at Irving 2015” – Posted by GDS Irving, May 18, 2015.

“Kizoa Video Maker: Great Days of Service 2015” – Posted by GDS Irving, May 18, 2015.

“Great Days of Service 2015” – Posted by The City of Irving, June 8, 2015.

Presented in the order noted:

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