As Sheriff, elected by the citizens, I answered directly to the citizens.  I learned early on when I asked another elected official about something that ‘elected officials don’t tell other elected officials what to do.’  While that wasn’t entirely accurate it pretty well defined my role in the county.

I answered to the County Commission in as much as how my activities affected the county – however, they could not tell me what I could or could not do in the Office.  As long as I obeyed the laws they had not say in my Office – EXCEPT when it came to budgeting.

We had to submit our budgets to a budget committee made up of the three elected commissioners and three private citizens appointed by the commissioners.  They could control some of what we did by either withholding or giving funds to operate the Office.

I knew what the Office was all about, but, I had a lot to learn about the operation of the Office and how it interacts with the citizens.  When I received my drivers permit I had yet to drive a car.  I was bragging to a friend that I had aced my test, his comment was ‘but that doesn’t mean you can drive.’  In short, I was too cocky.

Same point.

I had been elected, but I needed time in the Office to learn how to BE Sheriff.  And there was a lot learn.

While I knew there were problems within the Office, I found there were far more than I had known and some were dangerous to the deputies and the county as a whole.  I had a lot more work to do than I had appreciated.

My objectives for the Office when I was running FOR the Office were:

Professionalizing the Department

-   More Training for Employees

-   More Accountability for actions

-   Meaningful Evaluations

-   Weeding out management staff that are ineffective – but giving them an opportunity to prove themselves to me

Open Communications with the Media and Citizens

Dealing with conflicts between Rajneesh and other citizens of Wasco County

More presence in the south part of the county

More Volunteer Programs

The citizens also had some objectives for us:

-   Dealing with the Rajneesh

-   More Visibility throughout the county of both the deputies and the Sheriff.

However, I started re-evaluating what I thought needed to be done, some of it because of what I was seeing while orienting to the office and some mandated by law.

In ADDITION to the above I had to add these other objectives:

-   County wide 9-1-1 Program, a county wide contract had to be completed by the end of 1985 and we were a long way off from meeting that requirement

-   Jail had some serious personnel and operational issues, in addition to being a substandard facility and an attorney lurking around who was very eager to sue us.

-   Some of the supervisors just needed more training and we needed to get them on the same page with me – others were really incompetent, or acted in an adversarial manner and I would have to document their mishaps

-   Because a lot had been allowed under previous Sheriff’s – I felt I was going to have to create a new personality for the Office and that was going to take a longer time than I had originally thought – we were going to have to go from a slack Office to a more regimented and professional office and I was going to face resistance

-   Dealing with the Rajneesh encounters with my Office and other County agencies was much more involved that I had been appraised of initially

In that first year I had to add Rajneesh investigation to the list; fortunately the state was the chief investigator and while I, at first didn’t really appreciate them taking point, it became obvious we couldn’t handle it at our small county level.

It was hard to prioritize my objectives, mainly because so many were very important, and in other lists each would have been priority one.  I will elaborate on them in the future.

But my first unexpected surprise, and thus became my first priority even before taking Office, came during a County Commissioner’s meeting on December 2^nd that dealt with the Rancho Rajneesh’s festival the next summer.

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What is sin?  We can go by the Bible’s lists, somewhat:

Proverbs 6:16-19 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

¹⁷ A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸ An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

¹⁹ A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

That list is commonly called the Seven Deadly Sins

And the Ten Commandments:

Exodus 29:3-16 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

⁴ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

⁵ Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

⁶ And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

⁷ Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

⁸ Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

¹² Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

¹³ Thou shalt not kill.

¹⁴ Thou shalt not commit adultery.

¹⁵ Thou shalt not steal.

¹⁶ Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

¹⁷ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

These are the most recognizable sins the world knows.  They are just a few of the more detailed sins, there are a lot more, of course.  I read somewhere that the Jews were expect to obey somewhere around 400 commandments and breaking just one was as if they had broken all.

Many of the sins listed in the Bible are in the Old Testament and reaffirmed in the New. 

Some had to do with commandments explicit to the Jewish nation and obedience to them made them stand out from other people.  When Christ came they were no longer upheld.  Dietary laws, though good guidelines were not applicable to the Church.

Listing the sins helps, to a degree, to show what God dislikes; and more to the point they are what separates us from Him and can lead us to eternal damnation.

This is what the Jewish leaders did; they listed these sins, and whatever else they chose to be sins, and demanded obedience. 

These sins are obvious affronts to God, or He would not have placed them in His Word.  However, avoiding these sins does not necessarily mean we are free from sin.

America has what is called the rule of law; a person is either guilty or not according to the law.  We know however, that the law is often manipulated so that it isn’t as clear as the Legislative body thought when it wrote it. 

Whether or not a person is guilty of breaking a law depends not only on what the law says, but how a judge and/or jury perceives what was done and whether it broke the law or not.

While we would like to think that the law is pure and the people implementing it have a pure heart that is not always the case.

In a trial people lie, people make mistakes, evidence may have been improperly obtained or lost.  The defendant’s attorneys may be better lawyers than the prosecution and are able to sway a jury.

Depending on the case, criminal or civil, different rules of law apply and deferent rules of doubt apply.  To convict a person of a crime it must be done above a reasonable doubt, while in a civil trial it is by weight, one only has to show a 50%+ likelihood that there has been a violation.

Too many Americans think that God works in the same way.  If they can argue their case, effectively, then they will win.

What the world forgets is God is not man.  He has certain criteria that must be met when we come before Him.  Failure to meet those criteria is a death sentence.

The first criterion is that the soul before Him has accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior; that they are in the Lambs Book of Life.  The second is that they have strived to follow Him with a pure heart.

Mathew 22:36-40 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

³⁷ Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

³⁸ This is the first and great commandment.

³⁹ And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Even if we could obey all the STATED commandments of God in both the Testaments, we still would not be sin free.  That is why the Jewish people had to offer many sacrifices in their lifetime; and it did not free them from sin.  All have sinned, so except Christ, we are all sinners.

In our relationship with God through Christ we are expected to always obey, always do what He wants us to do.  We are expected to follow Him as He leads us in our daily life.  If we fail, even once to do so, we have sinned and it doesn’t matter if it isn’t one of the listed sins.

God deals with each person differently as individuals.  And what may be a sin for one is not even considered to be sin for another; the one disobeyed God’s direction in his life, the other wasn’t commanded to perform in the same manner.

If we find that we are trying to justify our actions to God, “I did or didn’t do this because.......” then chances are pretty good we have committed a sin of disobedience.

When it comes to the personal relationship with God we cannot have a strict law; we are each accountable to Him.

Mathew 15:8-9  This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

⁹ But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

What God wants is a heart that is directed to Him.

What is sin?  God gave us a definition.

James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Later, Art :-)

From the ColumbiaRiverGorgeous
May Our Good Lord Bless and Keep YOU....’til we meet again
Dad :-) to some, Art to the rest of ya!
Art :-) and Carla Labrousse
The Dalles, OR USA
http://www.fromcrg.com/index.html