Meaningful Adjacency is a term coined by architect Michael Arad. It’s the idea that people share deep relationships and connections in their lives. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 Michael was working for New York’s Housing Authority designing police stations. But his life changed that morning, as did the lives of so many people who were impacted by the events of that day.
Later on New York’s Port Authority requested submissions to build a memorial to commemorate those who lost their lives through this senseless act of terrorism. Over 5,000 designs were submitted and Michael and his team won. For those of you who have made the trip to New York and visited the memorial…it is an experience you will never forget. Perhaps the most meaningful aspect of the memorial is seeing all of the names that are engraved in brass above the empty holes that once served as the foundation for the towers. At first glance you might think that the names are just randomly placed around the perimeter, but the truth is that it took 3 years to create Meaningful Adjacency to every single name on the memorial.
What it means is that people are placed next to each other who shared some sort of relationship. Those who worked in the North Tower were all placed together. Those who were in an airplane were also placed together. But it goes deeper than even where they were geographically. Meaningful Adjacency sought to find people who were related and placed them together. Or those who not only worked in the same office or same fire department, but if they had a particularly close relationship then they were placed next to one another as well.
You and I have Meaningful Adjacency also. The most obvious are the people we live with. But also the people we interact with every single day. And the way we interact with people has an impact doesn’t it. As Christians the hope, of course, is that our lives will reflect Christ in some small way and as people interact with us, hopefully they get a sense of interacting with Christ. Colossians 3:17 reminds us,
“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Now go and practice Meaningful Adjacency today.