Count Your Blessings (When Upon Life's Billows) -- Johnson Oatman

This New Jersey businessman (in the Burlington County area – see map) had been engaged in a pretty recently adopted, and semi-serious venture, for about five years near the end of the 19^th Century. Johnson Oatman, Jr. must have been thinking some about how his life’s physical benefits so often appeared to be inadequate, and so he tried a different strategy to evaluate himself and his surroundings. Johnson had much that he cherished, though his four verses suggested this calculation was not always clear-cut. Was it only a curiosity, this songwriting that Johnson was practicing that generated “Count Your Blessings” (alternately known as “When Upon Life’s Billows”) in 1897? Certainly by the end of his life, one could say that it didn’t appear that way.  

Johnson Oatman was a well-known name in the Lumberton, New Jersey area, though you might have needed to specify whether it was Junior or Senior you pictured, and thought about how one name fed off the other. Johnson, Senior was reportedly the best singing voice, as well as a reputable businessman in central New Jersey, two attributes that no doubt impacted Johnson, Junior’s life. The younger Johnson followed in his father’s spiritual and business footsteps as an adolescent and young man, being ordained as a minister and taking part as a merchant in his father’s business. He’d apparently been at this up into his mid-30s, when he began to expand into songwriting, and it couldn’t have been long before others took notice, with the prolific output this effort showed. He wrote some 5,000 hymns by the end of his life in 1922, indicating he was composing several per week. That “Count Your Blessings” was published in a songbook for children could suggest he was trying to impart some wisdom to young people regarding how unfair earthly life might seem. He stayed in the business world, rather than completely devoting his life to church ministry, perhaps because of the experience working in commerce that his father had modeled for him. Could that choice have made an impact on his testimony in “Count Your Blessings”? He writes of challenges, as a guy engaged in industry might, in all of his verses. Though apparently successful, he must have winced a few times, seeing the greater success of others (…’lands and gold’, v.3), and noting how his own experience was not without hurdles (…’life’s billows…tempest tossed’, v.1; ‘burdened…load of care’, v.2; and ‘amid the conflict’, v.4). Maybe it was wisdom his own father had first passed along to Johnson, which said to consider the positives when you started to notice the negatives. It sounds like something the younger generation might need to hear from a pair of Johnsons old enough to be their father and grandfather.   

How often does one need to re-examine the columns of checkmarks and ‘x’s? Was it the first time Johnson Oatman, Junior had done so, when he was 41 years old in 1897? I think I had done so countless times by that age, how about you? Perhaps when one begins to pass along some of the good things, you begin to really see their value. An oft-forgotten blessing may need only a little dusting off for a needy individual to welcome its arrival with renewed joy. Can you picture a 40-something fellow, who’d seen his share of blessings? By that time, maybe Johnson had observed others who needed his perspective – challenges, sure, but outranked by those things in his own plus-column. It may have made his own blessings seem new again for him to engage in this accounting exercise. How’s your accounting sheet look today?

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

Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/o/u/countyou.htm

I’ll Be a Friend to Jesus – Johnson Oatman

This New Jersey native was near the end, and did he know it? Johnson Oatman, Jr.had written, by the time he composed “I’ll Be a Friend to Jesus”, thousands of hymns, so what more was there for this 66-year-old man to say? Since his death is recorded in the same year that this song is credited to him, perhaps he really just wanted to circle back to how he felt, to his focal point as a believer, before he would die. In that year, he was evidently engaged in taking the message outside of his native area (including Norman, Oklahoma, shown here in 1900 – perhaps not too different from the way it looked to Johnson in 1922), so perhaps he could feel that he was ready to go, although he may have expected to return to New Jersey. His life as a businessman had no doubt led him to encounters with many people, so it must have been important to remind himself and others whose friendship he really counted upon, especially since he undoubtedly expected this one to continue on another plane.

Johnson Oatman’s upbringing and life as a businessman must have ingrained within him the sentiment he expressed repeatedly in “I’ll Be a Friend…”. It’s said that a portion of Oatman’s youth was spent listening to his father singing church hymns, a love that evidently took root within the son, who by his life’s end had authored some 3,000 hymns. This father and son with the same name were also close in their vocational life as well, being partner-merchants in Lumberton, New Jersey for many years. Though the son was licensed as a minister, he reportedly preached only locally, and spent much of his time as a businessman when his father was alive, and then in an insurance enterprise in Mt. Holly (also in New Jersey) following his father’s death. Nevertheless, Johnson’s avocation would have no doubt been well-known to customers and counterparts in the business world who knew him. To write 3,000 hymn texts, he would most likely have engaged in some of this while otherwise occupied making his living. What kind of businessman-insurance man was he? With Jesus as his friend, one can imagine he was influential on a personal level. What venture had taken him to Norman, Oklahoma in 1922, where he died, is unknown. Perhaps he saw business opportunities in this recently established state (since 1907), or was there only temporarily. Whatever the reason, perhaps it was his stay in this ‘Bible-belt state’ that prompted him to consider his friendship with the Divine One.

How does one measure the value of a friend? Johnson may have asked himself that as he composed the words that survive him nearly 100 years later. Oatman’s answer was that he measured it in length, ‘until…(the) end’ (refrain and v.2); in places he might not have gone otherwise (v.3); and in telling others about him (v.4). Can’t you just imagine Johnson saying, ‘Got a friend like that, yet’?         

See these sites for all four verses and refrain, and a short biography on the composer: http://www.hymnary.org/text/they_tried_my_lord_and_master

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Oatman_Johnson

This site shows the composer died in Oklahoma, though he had otherwise lived in New Jersey: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/o/a/t/oatman_j.htm

This site describes the city where the composer died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman,_Oklahoma

Sweeter than All -- Johnson Oatman, Jr.

What is the tastiest, sweetest confection to your palate? A scientist might say such a compound would have to possess the chemical known as Lugduname (which a Chemistry textbook might depict this way). If someone said Jesus --to accurately define just how special and far above other faint copies of Him we could examine—was like Lugdumane, just how much more potent would He be? Science says the chemical shown schematically here is between 220,000 and 300,000 times as sweet as regular sugar. In fact, this chemical is so strong, it hasn’t been approved for use in our food. It must be that its dosage is hard to balance or restrict so that it doesn’t harm the human body. Did Johnson Oatman feel that way about Jesus when he said He was “Sweeter than All” in 1900? What would make this 44-year old man say that?

Johnson Oatman must have had plenty of ongoing and previous real-life experiences as the 19^th rolled into the 20^th Century to compare to the person of his faith. He’d been part of his father’s family commercial business as a young man, and later after his father’s death he sold insurance to make a living. These were following his initial inclination as a 19-year old to pursue formal ministry, although his ordination did not lead to larger roles in church work, but only in small local congregations in New Jersey, his lifetime home. So, by the time middle-age had come upon Oatman, he’d been pointed at various times in three different professional directions. His life’s avocation, songwriting, had also taken hold, a grip that would continue in a very firm—some might say consuming—way for the rest of his life. He would complete between three and five thousand lyrical compositions before his life concluded in 1922, a stunning amount, especially since it appears he did not begin this “hobby” until in his 30s. His father’s influence, as a notable singer and man of faith, no doubt also made its impact on the junior Oatman, distilling in him the fusion of music and faith. Most likely it was his family, and most prominently his father, who inclined his heart to believe the Christian faith could overcome any life-challenge. He may have been writing songs for about a decade, or at least for several years, when he expressed his ‘Sweeter…’ sentiments. Had the insurance business or other ventures around his New Jersey home brought into sharper relief how much he valued God? As an ordained minister, maybe he was also trying to encourage other believers in one of the local churches where he ministered part-time. Even sporadic preachers probably hear lots of the miseries of churchgoers than they know how to cure. Oatman’s musical remedy was no mystery. Taste Him. Let Him surmount your life’s ills.

Maybe it occurred to Oatman as he read David’s words about tasting (Psalm 34:8), or another ancient songwriter’s thoughts (Psalm 119:103) on the same sensation, that God is good, a sweetness that spurs my craving Him. Like the sweetest part of my meal – dessert, the concluding course--Oatman’s fourth verse of “Sweeter…” is about what he expected to taste as he entered life’s final phase.  This sweetness has such staying power, that it will endure even as I encounter death and approach Eternity’s territory. Johnson could imagine that scene, convinced as he was of God’s potency. Can you?  

Information on the song’s composer was obtained from the books  Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; and 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985. 

See also here for four verses and refrain of hymn: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/w/e/sweetrta.htm

See also here for brief biography of the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/o/a/t/oatman_j.htm

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Oatman_Johnson

Here’s some background on the chemical Lugduname:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugduname

Higher Ground -- Johnson Oatman, Jr.

It’s said that Johnson Oatman wasn’t quite satisfied where he was (most likely in New Jersey)

by the time he was 30-something, so he developed a therapy that seemed to scratch the itch he felt. “Higher Ground” was something that he needed to express in the 1890s, something that evidently rang true for so many others that it’s still making noises in the Christian communities of our world over 100 years later. What do you do when you sense disquiet in your being, a gnawing emptiness you don’t know how to fill? Oatman knew there was a vacuum, so he penned some words, a method that he used over and over and over, indeed thousands of times.

Johnson Oatman was such a prolific songwriter that one might assume that he made his living this way, but the opposite reality ironically may have compelled him to write words that he might not have otherwise.  He’d been ordained as a minister in New Jersey before he was 20, so he must have wanted to become a professional at teaching and preaching and winning souls for the Christian kingdom at one point in his life, right? He evidently leaned that direction, but instead made his living in his family’s mercantile business and later in the insurance field following his father’s death. In his mid-30s, Oatman began to write songs when he wasn’t occupied in business. And, he must have pondered quite a bit about his faith and had a deep desire to advance God’s kingdom even while at his job, because he apparently wrote lyrics for thousands of songs -- perhaps at least 3,000, though one source says 5,000. That would mean he wrote at least two per week through the rest of his life, which ended at 66 years of age in 1922! One must have a constant spark to compose so much on a regular basis, so maybe his daily professional life indeed played a role in his rich hymn-writing ventures. The words he wrote in “Higher Ground”, one of his earliest compositions, suggest he longed for something more beyond what his daily life was showing him. He sought ‘new heights’ (v. 1) and aspired to another world (vv.3-4), evidently as sought to escape this world’s ‘doubts’ and ‘fears’ (v. 2). Would he have been so driven to compose if he’d been satisfied with his earthly life? Higher ground probably wouldn’t have meant so much to a fellow who was totally content.       

 

How many people wander about on planet Earth with Oatman’s condition? Think of all the addictions or other unhealthy adventures pursued, and how often is this because someone is dissatisfied with life’s tedium? It’s OK to admit life might be dull. But, what to do with that is the issue. What if you could talk to a guy named David who lived over 3,000 years ago? Or others like him, with their names similarly scrawled across a musical page? They’re not here, but you can see their formulae for life-challenging problems. The songs aren’t necessarily always upbeat, though many or most are. Got a problem, or have something you want to say? Try picking up a pen or pencil…even during a spare minute at work. That was the Johnson Oatman method.

Information on the song’s composer was obtained from the books  Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; and 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985.

See also here for four verses and refrain of hymn: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/h/i/g/highergr.htm

See also here for brief biography of the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/o/a/t/oatman_j.htm

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