Revised Hawaiian hymnal to be celebrated

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Singing is such simple pleasure, and for those who employ it in worship, a spiritual one as well.The congregations of the United Church of Christ have known since 1989 that they were due a new Hawaiian hymnal, with the last one published in 1972.Even once the revisions committee was formed, the work took six years. Its chairman, Kahu Richard Kamanu, pastor of Kapa'a Church on Kaua'i, felt guilty when parishioners kept asking, "When will the hymnal be ready?" Then he found out that other songbooks – the Queen Lili'uokalani volume published last year, for example – have taken much longer. "I wish I'd known that," said Kamanu with a laugh. "I would have told people to relax and let us do a good job."

The popular reviews have been pretty good, said Sybil Schoenstein, choir director and organist at Kaumakapili Church. There have been the varied observations of various typos, or that this contemporary song or that one was not translated into Hawaiian and included, or that this traditional hymn or that one was deleted, she said. There's one common complaint, however.

"The problem many of us find is that the print is small," Schoenstein said.

Kamanu knows about the typos and has heard the print-size complaint before. He acknowledged that to save printing costs, the committee decided to reduce 81/2-by-11-inch pages to a 6-by-9 size, and the lyrics type size had to be shrunk accordingly.But Schoenstein appreciated certain improvements, including more careful renderings of Hawaiian words: In the past edition, some contractions were used to help fit lyrics beneath notations, changing the meaning. That has been corrected in this version, she said.

An especially attentive listener in Schoenstein's congregation is her cousin, who always sits about six rows back from the organ. "Aunty" Martha Poepoe Hohu, 94, is the daughter of the one-time Kaumakapili pastor, the Rev. Henry Poepoe, and was the longtime choir director. The new hymnal is dedicated to her, an honor that elicits a delighted little giggle from Aunty Martha.

Hohu chaired two previous hymnal committees, which produced the 1954 and 1972 editions. But change is a good thing, she said.

"We needed a new hymnal," she added, "and some of the songs needed to be deleted."

Hohu occasionally will comment if she thinks the hymn selection, for reasons of the lyrics, doesn't suit the occasion, she said, but basically she's content to sit and listen.

"I'm no longer the choir director," she said, smiling, "I'm just a member."

The hymnal includes some new features, too: Works for male choral groups are included now, as well as a section of worship aids, prayers for various holidays and seasons that have been translated into Hawaiian.

Kamanu, who is a native speaker of Hawaiian, said members of the Hawaiian-speaking Ni'ihau community helped with the new translations. That assist was particularly helpful in translating some of the newer "

praise" songs popular with the younger church members, which until now was sung in English.

One example: "Shine, Jesus, Shine," translated as "Kau Mai Kealoha" (Out of You, I Receive Love). All of the newer songs required clearance for copyright before they were included, and the publisher had to approve of the translation, as well, Kamanu said, to ensure "that the main message flows through the music."

"We also tested some of these songs out on the Hawaiian church choir retreat," he added. "We tested it out to see if it flows right. If the group was uncomfortable because there were too many words to get out with the music, we'd go back to the drawing board."

The music itself, however, translated surprisingly smoothly, he said.

"'Shine, Jesus, Shine' is pretty interesting when you add the Hawaiian instruments to it," Kamanu said. "We used the 'ipu, ka'eke'eke, 'uli'uli and the pu'ili. It sounded great."

Creating a songbook for that purpose, though, is no simple matter.