Feeling the implications of having a Mother in Heaven is a thing the pace of which I have not forced; but which has gradually crept up on me in the time since – not much more than a year ago – I became sure of her reality.

As would probably be expected from an understanding of the complementarity of the sexes – there are situations when thoughts of Mother in Heaven hardly arise – and one of these is theology. It seems natural, and almost necessary, to focus exclusively on Heavenly Father (and Jesus Christ) when discussing theological matters.

So far, her reality is most vivid in meditation – as contrasted with prayer. When I consider Heaven, and when I get a glimmering of a vision of this state, it makes a great difference that the divine family is headed by a Father and Mother – rather than a Father alone.

And Mother in Heaven works against losing myself in abstraction, and makes ‘God’ into actually real persons; makes ‘God’ a complex and differentiated entity – not anything like a simple force.

Mother in Heaven makes my feeling of the love of God something individual and specific and concrete – a very here and now and palpable kind of love.

And when I think of the monarchy of Heaven, I now think in terms of an ideal version of the many models of rulership between Man and Woman that are depicted in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Beren and Luthien, Earendil and Elwing, Celeborn and Galadriel, Aragorn and Arwen, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry.