A sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a real and important story, a sense of being connected to other people, to people who are not here any more, to those who have gone before us. And a sense of being connected to the universe itself.
All those things were promised and summed up in the phrase, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. But if the Kingdom is dead, we still need those things.We can find a way of creating them for ourselves if we think in terms of a Republic of Heaven.This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with — and this is the important thing — responsibilities.
Philip Pullman