Last week my wife and I joined a few hundred other citizens in a political demonstration in our town.  We stood along a busy intersection to attract the attention of the endless stream of people driving by.  Some of us had signs, one woman had a drum, some people chanted out slogans.  My wife talked politics with the people around us.  I just waved.  I tried to look people in the eye, seeking to respond to all the people in the vehicles who were responding positively to our message.  When someone would turn a thumbs down or flip the bird, I would smile and flash the peace sign, or just smile and wave.

About 20 minutes after we got there I realized that I was intensely happy.  I wondered what the cause of my happiness could be but that was a fleeting thought.  Why waste the moment on analysis when I could wave and smile and enjoy the people driving by and be happy.

The next day I started thinking about the cause of that happiness.  In hindsight there were no interesting insights.  I was happy … and remembering that makes me happy.  I was, however, reminded of a Sabbath poem of Wendell Berry, “2007–XII”

What I experienced last week was a specific example of the joy that Berry is talking about.  A little part of the desire for all things is the desire for human community.  And the joy I was experiencing came from the maker’s joy in humans who are able to form and maintain communities.  When these communities are healthy they benefit their members as well as all other made things.  But when these communities are unhealthy they can wreak havoc within themselves and on other made things.

I have been developing a theory about happiness as a sense similar to smell and taste which works on a social level instead of the individual level.  When we smell and taste something good our bodies know that eating it will be good for us and for our health.  But foul tastes and smells warn us of poisons and our bodies know that they should be avoided or spit out.  In a similar way, a feeling of joy, a deep and peaceful happiness, can lead us into healthy communities.  And a lack of joy, either a lack of happiness, or a feigned or agitated happiness, can warn us to avoid a toxic and unhealthy community.

Last week at the demonstration my social senses may have been affirming that that spontaneous, temporary community of strangers was doing something for the good of all things.  I participated because I hoped and thought that it would.  Those hopes and thoughts were reinforced in a deeper way by my sense of happiness.