Rachel’s Challenge, which Black Diamond Elementary is currently participating in through the Enumclaw School District, is a program designed to encourage kindness among students and parents. Every time a child or teacher does a kind act, they create a paper link to a chain they hope will extend two miles.

The concept of the program was inspired by 17-year-old Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed during the 1999 Columbine shooting.

After her death, it was discovered she had written six diaries. Among the topics she wrote about was her desire to see more kindness around her. Putting her words into action, Rachel’s Challenge was created and is used by schools nationwide.

I had the opportunity to speak about Rachel with Bill Allison, a Maple Valley City councilman who attended the same church Scott and her family frequented in Colorado.

The impression I got of Scott was one of an ordinary teenager who seemed to have a very strong premonition of her ultimate purpose. In her diary entries, she repeatedly expressed the idea that her time on this planet was limited.

“Rachel knew she wasn’t going to live long,” Allison said. “She knew she would not live past the year. If she could see how her voice is heard through her diaries, it was what she expected.”

In the wake of school shootings, Rachel’s Challenge is the best message to send to students. Blaming guns, video games, trench coats, pharmaceutical drugs or filling schools with armed policeman teaches them that it isn’t the human heart that’s at fault, but material items.

Kids don’t just walk into a school with home-made bombs and automatic weapons because they played too much Call of Duty.

Hopefully the students participating in Rachel’s Challenge will learn that virtue is not conditional or reactive. They should not be considerate out of peer pressure or because they will receive praise for it.

The schools should encourage them to emulate this behavior even when no one is looking because character is not circumstantial and it is not always done in the public eye. It remains constant in all situations.

Scott’s family is a good example of this.

I think what would make Rachel the most proud is how her family has handled her death. Her younger brother also attended high school with her and watched as his classmates were shot right in front of him.

As Allison described it to me, it had the same impact on Littleton as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had on the United States little more than two years later. Parents waited for children to get off of buses who never did.

I cannot nor will I attempt to imagine what Scott’s family went through on April 20, 1999.

All I know is that if anyone had the right to demand blood, they did. They could have easily used the publicity to name a scapegoat.

Allison and I also discussed the family’s response. It is remarkable when you compare it to how others who have gone through the same loss have responded. They’re not pointing fingers in blame. They know there was meaning behind her death.

In particular, Allison spoke highly of Darrel Scott, Rachel Scott’s father.

“He wasn’t bitter (after Rachel’s death),” Allison said. “He’s not an angry man.”

When I think of Scott’s family, the parable of the Good Samaritan comes to mind.

A “Good Samaritan” has come to be seen as someone who helps out a stranger. Sadly, this removes the original parable from its proper historical context.

Ancient Samaria was located directly north of Israel and the hatred was so great between the two nations that their people would not have anything to do with each other and often prevented travel within their country.

So when the Samaritan helped the injured Jew on the side of the road, he wasn’t helping a stranger — he was helping an enemy.

There is a reason it’s called Rachel’s Challenge, not Rachel’s Initiative or Rachel’s Dream. It’s not merely about challenging people to show compassion to each other. It’s easy to respond to kindness with kindness.

It becomes hard when it is not equally reciprocated or at all.

In those circumstances, it’s natural to ostracize and isolate someone. Rachel Scott believed people should behave kindly to everyone, regardless of how they themselves are treated. It’s about having the forbearance to deal with people who harass you day after day, often without reason. It’s about forgiving those who hurt you, even when they don’t apologize.

Now that is a real challenge.