And it\u2019s not just one problem. It\u2019s one after another after another. They\u2019ve been hit with flat wages or even slightly declining wages. And all the core expenses of being middle class, of housing, of healthcare, of what it costs to keep a child in daycare or send a kid to college, to medical care. All of those costs have shot through the roof. That has put a squeeze on these families. They sent as many people as they could into the workforce, in two-parent families, they sent both Mom and Dad or both Moms into the workforce, but it still wasn\u2019t enough. They turned to debt and then they were targeted by a credit industry that figured out you could make huge profits from lending to people who were already in a financial squeeze. And so what\u2019s happened is that America\u2019s middle class has just been under this enormous pressure, and parts of it are beginning to break apart. Our once steady, solid, almost dull middle class, that was the idea. We were so sure it would always be there. Pieces are starting to break away. Families can no longer say to their kids, \u201cyou\u2019re going to do better than I did.\u201d And that\u2019s what it is we have to attack.<\/p>\n
\u2026 The question is what are we going to do going forward? We have to outline our priorities and we have to be willing to get in there and fight for them. And that\u2019s what all of this is about. It\u2019s about how we fight for our college kids, the ones who are trying to get an education and being crushed by student loan debt. It\u2019s about how we fight for seniors to protect Social Security and to help people get more money into retirement savings. And in this particular case with this bill, it\u2019s how we fight for people who have been hit with one economic blow or another and are out there trying to compete in the job market and just want a level playing field. You\u2019re right, the pieces come together because a lot is broken, and it\u2019s going to take a lot of pieces to get it fixed again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cThe pieces come together because a lot is broken\u201d is excellent theology.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to focus on the negative \u2014 \u201ca lot is broken\u201d and there\u2019s so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found \u2014 there\u2019s so much to do and, therefore, there\u2019s so much that can be done<\/em>.<\/p>\nPut pieces back together. Any pieces. Whichever pieces you are inspired, or driven, or called or required to work on. Putting those pieces back together helps restore the whole. It\u2019s all connected. Seek to mend.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s easy to focus on the negative — “a lot is broken” and there’s so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found — there’s so much to do and, therefore, there’s so much that can be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-warfare"],"yoast_head":"\n
'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's easy to focus on the negative -- "a lot is broken" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's easy to focus on the negative -- "a lot is broken" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/\",\"name\":\"'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"It's easy to focus on the negative -- \\\"a lot is broken\\\" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"‘The pieces come together because a lot is broken’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'","description":"It's easy to focus on the negative -- \"a lot is broken\" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'","og_description":"It's easy to focus on the negative -- \"a lot is broken\" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00","author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/","name":"'The pieces come together because a lot is broken'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-30T16:17:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"It's easy to focus on the negative -- \"a lot is broken\" and there's so much to do. But this is also where hope can be found -- there's so much to do and, therefore, there's so much that can be done.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/12\/30\/the-pieces-come-together-because-a-lot-is-broken\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"‘The pieces come together because a lot is broken’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}