RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM At the First Chinese Church of Christ Tuesday, the Rev. Paul Brennan held an unworked piece of lumber that he recovered from a building next to the church. He used this pine to make the poles carved with "Love" and "Patience."

A pastor uses his woodcarving skills
to create analogies to life and remind
his congregation of positive values

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By Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.com

It's not unusual for a preacher to use visual aids, from a tiny mustard seed to illustrate a parable to a cast of backup actors staging the theme of the day.

What the Rev. Paul Brennan has been unveiling in recent sermons is his own woodcraft. The words "Love," "Patience" and "Faithfulness," which he has carved into polished pine columns, focus listeners' attention as he talks about applying those traits in life.

The pastor of First Chinese Church of Christ is working through the nine fruits of the spirit described by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians.

"They may have Christian origins, but I see them as universal values," he said of the list, which includes joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.

"All over the world, there is a desire to live out their expression."

The woodcarving works well as a device for the 63-year-old storyteller, who has a lifetime of personal experience and philosophy to share. As a boy in Ohio, Brennan learned from his Mennonite grandfather to carve wood with simple hand tools.

"Wood is a means to escape. I can be totally engrossed in the grain, the personality of the wood." And, he said, "wood is forgiving" because a slip of the chisel can be carved or sanded away.

The congregation can appreciate the finished product because they saw the raw material at its roughest. Brennan scavenged stairway posts during recent demolition of the building next door, the vintage Hotel Napua that recently served as apartments for low-income tenants. He considered the old wood a treasure, slow-growth pine of a density not found in modern lumber, he said. He was also delighted to find, under layers of paint, that the original woodcraftsman, N. Kawada, had carved his name.

A bowl he fashioned from the same pine for retiring pastor Jia He Cheng contains flaws, the tracks of termites, which is part of his intended message about life.

"Even though some of it is scarred, the fine grain is still there, and most of it can be restored to usefulness," Brennan said.

He carved the word "Restored" into a similarly flawed cup: "I think it is a powerful message that way. It is a good parallel in our lives. We all need restoring."

What Brennan calls his "lexical art" is an expression of his two careers. He made a detour after graduating from the seminary in 1968 and did not become a minister until nearly 30 years later.

"I became fascinated with language," he said, and went on to get master's and doctorate degrees in linguistics. He worked as a linguist, teaching Hebrew and Greek, and as an anthropologist. With his wife and four sons, Brennan lived for 10 years with the Enga people in Papua-New Guinea, where he also served as cultural advisor to Prime Minister Michael Somare.

"I love to think about words, to study them," said Brennan, who has written widely about the Enga, worked at the East-West Center as a research specialist on Melanesia, writes poetry and reads St. Paul in the original Greek. He expects to add the Hebrew and Greek translations to each carved pillar.

When the family moved to Hawaii in 1981, he brought rain-forest hardwoods from New Guinea, most of which he has translated into beds, tables, chairs and cabinets that furnish their Maunawili home.

After retirement, Brennan decided at last to go into the ministry. He served three Molokai congregations for seven years and was previously at a Kailua church.

He has been English-language pastor for two years at First Chinese Church, which has unique architectural features, just the thing to delight a woodcraftsman. Built by a Chinese congregation that moved from Chinatown in 1927, it is decorated with tile and contains huge beams and wrought-iron features from China.

"I am happy at this stage of life to be working in a hands-on way with people with real needs. I love being around young people, their youth and vitality," he said.

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