Former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, now Secretary of Health and Human Services, has rightly come under a lot of fire for her views on abortion and her seeming friendship with the now-murdered abortionist George Tiller, and it’s particularly depressing that a self-proclaimed “personally opposed” Catholic heads the HHS, the government agency most naturally connected to the abortion industry. Tuesday night, on my flight into Kansas City, I sat catercorner to her. My girlfriend, who was flying in with me, pointed out that she was reading Dan Brown’s latest book, Lost Symbol. Garbage in, garbage out, I suppose.
Nevertheless, Secretary Sebelius is rather personally charming, and after I filled her in on how my dad just broke his hip, and might not be able to do Thanksgiving or walk his youngest daughter down the aisle at her wedding (on Saturday), she wrote him a get well soon card. I’d heard she was charming in person, and I found that to be the case, as well. For me, it just served as a reminder that what we surround ourselves with — our choice of friends, books, movies, associates, and so forth — directly influences who we are as a person and how we see the world. I feel like had Sebelius surrounded herself with positive Catholic influences instead of anti-Catholic and pro-abortion influences, she might have been a very different person. I don’t say this to pass judgement upon Secretary Sebelius,but simply as a reminder that these seemingly insignificant actions can help determine our destinies.