No, Not One – Johnson Oatman, Jr.

He was a believer in insurance …that’s what many who crossed this fellow’s path might have remembered about him, if they never saw his poetry. But, it’s a good bet that Johnson Oatman Jr.’s insurance advice wasn’t exclusively the conventional kind that would protect yours and your loved ones’ financial state. He’d probably pondered another state for a while by the time he turned 39 and wrote the words “No, Not One” as the turn of the century approached in 1895. His vocation, though secular, did not prevent him from pursuing other, deeper expressions of his beliefs, a ministry that flourished and was prodigious by any standard. What motivated him, at a relatively late point in life, to burst forth with his song-writing?  Was he thinking negatively (No, Not One), as someone might who’s considering negative space (as in this classic Rubin’s vase optical illusion, shown here, wherein nothingness actually does depict something after all)?

Johnson Oatman, Jr. evidently took after his father, Johnson Sr., in many ways, but also sowed new ground following his father’s departure from life. His father’s reputation as a singer—called by some the best in the eastern U.S.--no doubt overshadowed the younger Johnson to some degree. He nevertheless must have admired his dad, so much so that he joined in the family’s business to work alongside Johnson Sr. Moreover, at 19 years old, he became an ordained Methodist minister, yet remained in the family’s commercial enterprise, manifest evidence that he’d matured in the faith instilled by his father while remaining close to his parental and vocational influence. With his father’s death (exact year unknown), two important changes would commence in Johnson Jr.’s life. The younger Oatman is credited with some 3,000 to 5,000 hymn texts, an incredible number, especially considering he did not begin this avocation until in his mid-30’s, apparently after his father was gone. In addition to this new venture, he changed professional careers, entering the insurance field (the reason for the switch in vocation is not known). Thus, a casual, distant observer might presume that the son was finally breaking free of shackles, becoming his own man both vocationally and creatively. Perhaps some of that is true. But, one thing that linked the two Oatmans remained – the father’s love for God expressed through music did not die with him. Indeed, watching and listening to his dad for years, someone might say, welled up into a colossus that would articulate itself throughout the last three decades of the son’s life. “No Not One”, written about three years into this new part of Oatman’s life as a songwriter, offers a window into his emotions and his spirit.  Was he breaking free, or was he magnifying what had been planted inside? You and I can look at his words and decide.

Johnson Oatman evidently had issues like any of us, someone who needed ‘cheer’ while confined in a dark place managing ‘struggles’ and ‘soul’s diseases’. He also evidently had pangs of loneliness. He’d lost his father, so we might surmise he was missing him and clinging to the divine Father. That Father promises not to leave. As he looked around in 1895, perhaps that’s what he’d discovered, that nothing down here compares to what He has for me. People die. Jobs change. Can I find anything here that’s good that doesn’t eventually bust, or any hurt that completely goes away though salved with the best solution? No, not one, Oatman’s words repeat. Was it a mid-life crisis, triggered by personal and vocational challenges that made Johnson Oatman write the words? Maybe. They won’t matter, ultimately. No, not one. These negative words are worth a hoorah in this case!   

           

See more information on the composer and the song in Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.  For more background on the composer, see Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003; and 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985