We all understand when bad things happen to good people.
It’s more complicated to accept the capacity of bad people to do good things.
Yet, that’s exactly the moral dilemma we face after the arrest last week of Joshua Shea, a young community leader who now faces heinous accusations.
If police allegations are true, Shea, publisher and editor of Lewiston Auburn Magazine and a linchpin of the Lewiston Auburn Film Festival, possessed child pornography on a computer.
If true, and none of us can judge that yet, he will be punished severely in due course.
Violators often lose their liberty and usually spend the rest of their lives identified as criminals on the state’s Sex Offender Registry, the modern equivalent of a scarlet letter.
But lives, especially the troubled lives of sex offenders, are sometimes a complex mixture of good and bad.
Just as we must recognize that Shea may have done very bad things, over the past five years he has also made contributions to these two communities.
He served as an Auburn city councilor, he was a magazine publisher and he was a film aficionado who started a popular and growing film festival from the ground up.
While Shea was the key person in the festival, the event itself was built by the people who helped Shea, volunteered for the festival and supported the idea with their ticket money and attendance.
Over the weekend, a group of people considered going forward with the festival, which is less than two weeks away. But they have no access to the details of this year’s festival, nor the legal standing to take charge of another person’s event.
They are willing, but they just don’t have the authority or knowledge to grab the reins and guide this year’s festival across the finish line.
Sunday, a former co-owner of the festival told the Sun Journal that she wished Shea would “man up and say something.”
We urge Shea, who is out on bail, to step up and transfer authority and plans to the people who have helped him in the past and who seem willing to rescue this year’s festival.
We also trust that this community and the patrons of the festival can separate whatever evil Shea may have done from the value of this festival to our community.
We spend a lot of time worrying over our community’s image. Picking up and moving forward with the festival would clearly demonstrate our resilience.
In his magazine, Shea regularly wrote about his love for the community where he grew up. In the March edition of Lewiston Auburn Magazine, he looked back on his belief that “something good was happening around here.”
Shea’s arrest is a personal disaster for him. Though difficult, we hope he will rise from his own troubles long enough to make sure this lasting contribution to his community survives.
rrhoades@sunjournal.com
The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.
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