"Am I my brother's keeper? Is answered in the daily work of showing up, being challenged, getting it wrong, being corrected, and showing up again." - Ken Woodward In this solo episode, Ken Woodward explores one of humanity's oldest and most challenging questions: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Born from Cain's evasion after murdering Abel, this question continues to shape how we answer fundamental issues about immigration, homelessness, healthcare, and who deserves our care.Drawing from his 101-week walk through every street and alley in Washington, DC, Ken reflects on how he spent 50 years answering "no" to this question while convincing himself he was answering "yes." He shares powerful conversations with Raymond Coates about the Sugar House in Charleston, encounters with a woman who demanded accountability, and the devastating costs of both saying yes and saying no.This episode challenges listeners to examine their own complicity, confront inherited assumptions, and honestly assess who they've decided doesn't count as "brother." Ken offers four concrete takeaways to help transform this ancient question from theological abstraction into daily practice.This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Keep questioning! Episode Notes00:00 The Work of a Brother's Keeper01:12 Welcome to Curated Questions01:50 Am I My Brother's Keeper02:36 The Origin: Cain's Evasion04:44 The Question I Avoided Asking09:09 The Question I Lived11:07 Who Counts As Brother?14:21 What This Question Reveals15:45 The Cost of Yes!19:51 The Cost of No23:50 the Present Moment27:22 The Military Exception28:42 Repentance & Reparation32:35 The Vulnerability of Yes34:00 The Question For You36:58 The Invitation38:41 Takeaway43:27 Final Closing Resources MentionedCain & AbelBook of GenesisJames BaldwinLies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. LoewenCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel WilkersonGeorge FloydBreonna TaylorAhmaud ArberyThe TorahThe parable of the Good SamaritanJesusJesus and the Disinherited by Howard ThurmanRaymond CoatesLorton PrisonSugar House, Charleston, South CarolinaTraining Day with Denzel WashingtonBuddy HarrisonMalcolm XJerry ColonnaAn Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizSouthern StrategyRedliningNegro BibleCivil Rights ActCivil Liberties Act of 1988Emmett TillJerry JonesMary OliverProducer Ben FordBeauty Pill Questions AskedAm I my brother's keeper?Where is your brother Abel?Who have I decided doesn't count?Whose suffering have I accepted as normal?Whose voice have I decided doesn't matter quite as much as others?How am I actually answering this question with my life, not with my words?Why didn't Black service members get access to the GI Bill after returning from World War II?How is the Republican adoption of the Southern Strategy to disenfranchise Black voters starting in the 1950s still functioning?How was a Black family supposed to build generational wealth when redlining was legal?What do I do with the half that's correct?Who is my neighbor?How are people with their backs against the wall supposed to relate to Christianity when Christians have their boot on their necks?Will my brother keep me?How have you been complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?You think that didn't affect him?You think he went home and was a good father? A good husband?You think that violence stayed contained in the Sugar House?You think you got something to say, don't you?Are you a racist?What do you think about slavery?What do you think about policing?What about reparations?What about income inequality?What is this project going to accomplish?How is this going to make a difference in my life?Are you really my brother's keeper, or are you just performing?What does repentance look like?What does turning away from these sins look like?What does making amends look like?Who have you decided doesn't count as your brother?How has your boundary line shifted over time?Who is included that wasn't before, and who has now shifted beyond that border?What would it cost you to say yes to someone you've been saying no to?What are the things your grandparents taught you—not explicitly, but through silence, through who was welcome in your home, through what neighborhood you lived in—that were actually answering "no" to this question?Which of those things are you still practicing?Am I ready to become my brother's keeper?What would it cost me to actually be this person's keeper?What have I taught you, through my actions and choices rather than my words, about who counts as your brother?Is that the inheritance you want from me?

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