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  • Pat Bertram is the author  of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

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Living in Controversial Times

June 7, 2020 — Pat Bertram

During all my years online (almost thirteen), I’ve been careful not to be too controversial. I am not a person who likes contention or welcomes insults. Too many people are reactionary, responding with emotion or the party line when anyone disagrees with their pet view of the world, and it’s not worth attracting such attention.

Admittedly, I don’t like people disagreeing me, either, but if that disagreement is accompanied by thoughtful (meaning full of thought) or thought-provoking ideas, it often leads to a new understanding of the matter. But rote remarks that simply iterate popular opinions don’t accomplish anything except to stop any dialogue and possible accord.

Unfortunately, this controversial time, with all the wrong information, misuse of statistics, and outright lies that pass for knowledge about first The Bob and then the riots has made me a bit less than close-mouthed. I’m still trying to be circumspect, so when a person I saw in real life disagreed with a comment I made, I let it go. It’s not worth discussing points of disagreement when you know nothing will come of it. Unfortunately, the person continued the discussion on Facebook with an insulting comment. Matters came to a head when I posted a controversial video on Facebook that pointed out some of the fallacies that are being disseminated, and sure enough, this person left another insulting comment. The comments weren’t bad, not what most people are faced with, but I didn’t want to deal with the situation. So I blocked the person. I’ve never done that before, but it seemed the right thing to do. I don’t know what I’ll do when I see this person around town, but that’s not a problem for today.

It just goes to show that I really do need to stay away from Facebook and other such sites, especially if I ever again let myself express unpopular opinions. I haven’t yet deleted my account, and I don’t plan to, but I am not happy with FB’s non-response to my appeals to have them remove the block they’ve put on my blog.

Luckily, I have plenty of offline things to do, such as organizing the things that are to be stored in the garage when it is finished. As hard as that work will be, especially with my bum knee, it’s easier than living in controversial times.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in internet, life. Tags: can't get Facebook to remove a block, disagreeing with people, disseminating wrong information, don't like controversy, don't like reactionary people, small town, staying away from controversy, staying away from Facebook. 10 Comments »
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  • New Release!

  • “I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

  • Grief Books By Pat Bertram

    Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

  • Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).

    Click here to buy Grief: The Inside Story

  • Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

  • Other books by Pat Bertram

    Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

  • While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

  • When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

  • Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

  • DAI

    When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

    A Spark of Heavenly Fire

    In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

    More Deaths Than One

    Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?

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