In Memoriam: David Levey

Today we attended the funeral of an old friend, David Levey. It was the first funeral we had attended since the Covid-19 lockdown started, and was held at St Wilvrid's Anglican Church in Hillcrest, the Revd Grant Thistlewhite officiating. Everyone wore mask, and the pews were roped off and marked so that everyone kept the regulation 2 metres apart. A register was taken at the door, presumably to see that the number attending did not exceed 50 and to be able to track contacts in case anyone present turned out to be infected.

David Levey, Oct 1918

I say David Levey was an old friend, and we had known him for 37 years, since early 1983, when he and his wife Fran were parishioners at St Stephen's Church in Lyttelton. But soon afterwards they left to join St Alban's Cathedral parish, and over the years I only saw David on rare occasions. David thought they were too rare, and out of the blue invited us to have coffee and chat with him at Cafe 41 in Arcadia in 2012.

Another four years passed and then we heard that David was going to speak at TGIF, an early morning gathering on Friday mornings when someone speaks on some aspect of the Christian faith in the modern world. It was something we attended occasionally when they had speakers who looked interesting, and I thought David would be interesting when he spoke on the topic of "reading irreligiously", and so it turned out to be. After this talk we discussed the possibility of meeting regularly to discuss Christianity and literature, and met every month for the next four years at rhe same Cafe 41 that David had introduced us to. Our meetings came to an end at the beginning of 2020, ended by Covid-19 and David's own illness, which sadly turned out to be his last.

I blogged about most of these meetings, and so perhaps people who knew David might find these accounts interesting where they recorded some of the things that David contributed to the discussion. So here are links to some of those blog posts, some of which also include pictures of David.

• TGIF: reading irreligiously | Khanya -- David speaking at TGIF.
• Milton, Lewis, Pullman, and pop culture | Khanya -- the second part of David's talk on "Reading Irreligiously, and my response to it. We continued the discussion at several of our later Christianity and literature gatherings, which took the form of a literary coffee klatsch.
• Tshwane Inklings | Khanya -- the first of our monthly discussions on Christianity and literature, much of it being further discussion arising out of David's talk on "Reding Irreligiously".
• G.K. Chesterton, distributism, communitarianism and more | Khanya -- with some of David's comments on the rediscovery of the ordinary.
• The problem of Susan: growing up? | Khanya -- more on the topics David raised in his talk at TGIF.
• Neoinkings: Time to talk | Khanya -- mainly about children's books. Has a picture of David.
• Children’s science fiction and more | Notes from underground
• Witchcraft in literature and life (coffee klatsch) | Khanya -- also with a picture of David.
• Literary coffee klatch: witchcraft, demons, and war | Khanya
• Fantasy, horror, science fiction and more | Khanya
• Literary Coffee Klatsch: the Horrors, Kidlit & more | Khanya
• Neoinklings: alienation and otherness | KhanyaWormholes and tunnels | Khanya
• Genius, shades, ancestors and more | Notes from underground
• Philosophy, science fiction, capitalism & rural development | Khanya
• Climate change, dystopia, history and politics | Khanya
• Strangers in a fourth mansion | Khanya
• Mostly about identity politics | Khanya
• Theological education and literature | Khanya

We will miss David.

May his memory be eternal.