The Gospel According to The Office’s Dwight Schrute

Word from Wiese

12 July 2023

Even though the smash-hit series, The Office, stopped filming in 2013, it was still the most highly-streamed series (acquired) watched by Americans in 2020 (and maybe the last couple of years too). If so, that means many of you giggle even thinking of Dwight Schrute . . . in my mind, a TV character side-kick legend right up there with Barney Fife.

In the last couple of weeks, actor Rainn Wilson is capturing imaginations not with punchlines from his character Dwight, but his new travel series, “Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss.”

Interviewer Jancee Dunn shares how Wilson has been candid about his history with anxiety and depression. In 2008, he founded Soul Pancake, a digital media company exploring life’s big questions as part of his search for clarity. His struggle to find happiness has also led him to churn through therapists and self-help books.

Wilson is honest about crippling panic attacks he had in his 20s that would leave him on the floor, shaking and sweating. At first, he self-medicated — “I used a lot of drugs and alcohol,” he said. Since then, he has turned to Gestalt therapy and hypnosis, but anxiety is still something he deals with every day, he said.

In the “Geography of Bliss,” Wilson explores some of the world’s happiest and unhappiest places in an attempt to unlock the secrets of well-being. His destinations were chosen based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s World Happiness Report, which rates life satisfaction in different nations. When asked for advice based on his travels, Wilson noted that many aspects of happiness are outside a person’s control such as economic status or where someone lives. So maybe the following doesn’t measure up to “The Gospel According to Dwight Shrute.” But he shared three things he learned that might help you in your life. And what I find fascinating (although not surprising regarding observations on happiness) is that each one is connected integrally to the Christian faith.

Take to the water.

Wilson’s first stop was Iceland, which ranks as the third happiest country in the World Happiness Report. He found that Icelanders build their communities in the water.

“Icelanders are a very social people,” he said. “They love to sit together in bubbly, hot springs.”

He also met Icelanders who take cold-water ocean plunges together for mental health, and gave it a shot. (Early research suggests this practice might benefit mental health, but more studies are needed.) Wilson has since made it a regular habit.

“As much as every fiber of my body is screaming out, ‘No, stop,’ I’m so glad every time I do,” he said. “I liken it to rebooting your computer.”

+++ Here’s where I would love to talk to Rainn/Dwight about our theology of baptism and how through water and God’s promises we are made new and re-connected to God’s purposes daily!

Connect with others — whenever, wherever you can.

Study after study has found that people who have robust relationships with friends, family and community are happier and healthier.

Wilson said he saw this play out in Ghana, where 10 people will sometimes eat from the same bowl during a lively communal meal. This sense of easy unity was in direct contrast to his own childhood meals, which Wilson describes in one episode as “sitting in silence over frozen TV dinners” with his father and stepmother.

“Every time I came into contact with a person who had an expansive sense of well-being,” he said, “I swiftly realized that they had a deep and real connection to some kind of extended community.”

Wilson, who admitted on the show that his usual inclination was “to be left the hell alone,” has taken that appreciation of community back to his home in Los Angeles. “My daily work around my anxiety has to do with making sure that I don’t isolate, and that I connect with other people,” he said.

+++ Here’s where I would love to talk to Rainn/Dwight about our theology of community. Of how God calls us to gather weekly for worship. Of how Jesus worked so hard to keep his small group of 12 traveling together. Of how the bible constantly talks about the fellowship and mutual concern of Christians.

Allow happiness and sorrow to coexist.

Wilson also wanted to know what he could learn from a place that ranked lower in the World Happiness Report, so he traveled to Bulgaria, which is No. 77. There, he said he found “pockets of joy among the cracked Brutalist buildings.”

In the show, he speaks with Georgi Gospodinov, a Bulgarian novelist whose stories “center on his motherland’s unique blend of misery.” Gospodinov tells Wilson that it’s part of the human condition to feel sorrow — and that it can be freeing to recognize that there is no joy without an acknowledgment of pain.

This attitude, Wilson said, contrasts with what he called the pressure of enforced optimism, “which can be deleterious to one’s mental health.”

“I can feel sorrow and darkness and still feel joyful,” Wilson said. “Joy doesn’t negate the difficulties of being alive.”

+++ Here’s where I would love to talk to Rainn/Dwight about our theology of life. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus indicates how the weeds and the wheat do indeed grow together in the fields of life. But in the future harvest, all will be made right. Simul Justus et peccator is Martin Luther’s phrase that all humans will struggle in this earthly life of always being both saint and sinner simultaneously. We are in the struggle of brokenness, but in the Lord’s hope and renewal, we see chances to transform the pain into hope and minimize the hardship of this world through Christ-inspired mutual love, care, and interaction.

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Questions:

What other programs might you be viewing or books that you are reading that “make the case of the Jesus-way” without using explicit terminology of faith?
How are you living out the three recommendations for a vibrant life articulated above? Which is your strongest behavior? Which is a growth area?
Do you happen to know actor Rainn Wilson? If so, let’s invite him to COS for a special sermon series!