About Us

Hi, I’m Mark Barger Elliott. I write, speak, drink too much coffee, want to retire in Italy, and co-founded the Emotional Architecture Center and The Miracle Year Lab. A few other fun facts about me:

For 34 years I’ve been married to an amazing woman and our three grown children inspire us every day and who live in D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago.

For 30 years I’ve been studying and researching emotions and excited to share the concept of Emotional Architecture. It’s drawn from paradigm-shifting research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and AI. I also write a daily blog called On Emotions that is read thousands of times every month.

I’m an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Lost Boy Home tells the story of a Sudanese “Lost Boy” who returns to South Sudan to search for his parents. The Last Songwriter tells the story of streaming’s impact on songwriters and stars Emmylou Harris and Jason Isbell. I’m an author of a book of poems, finding the middle of a maze, and on communication

If you’re curious about my educational journey, I graduated from Cornell University with a BA in English, Princeton Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity, and San Francisco Theological Seminary with a Doctorate in communication.

As a child in Nairobi, I was almost eaten by a lion; as a teenager, I published poems in national magazines and took games off a future Wimbledon champion; in Oxford, I gave a TED talk on the miracle of finding three blue lobsters in 48 hours; and I’ve finished seven marathons before street sweepers closed the course.

Hi, I’m Lynn Barger Elliott. I write, speak, drink too much coffee, want to retire in Italy, and co-founded the Emotional Architecture Center and The Miracle Year Lab. A few other fun facts about me:

I have also been married for 34 years to this amazing life partner and raised three kids that we celebrate, enjoy, and who live in D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago.

For 30 years I was a pastor and it was a privilege to walk alongside people as they crossed life’s thresholds of relationships, parenting, work, loss and grief, and our final parting.

I begin most days with a walk through my neighborhood.

I look up to see what has changed in the skies and the trees above me, and down to notice what’s growing beneath me.

I listen to the voices around me – the woman who talks to her 2-year-old in the stroller, the son who shouts across the miles to his elderly mother on the speaker phone, the runner who waves as he swiftly passes me, and the silence of the woman who shuffles with her walker down the block with her 3 dachshunds.

I attempt to hold for myself and others, the wonder, mystery, beauty, tragedy, and all the unexplainable events that unfold in our lives.

I am an author with a new book coming out soon, Grief is Art: 17 Ideas on How to Invite Art to Heal Our Pain and Loss, and in early 2025, On the Other Side of Healing: 51 Reflections on What We Discover as We Heal. 

I am an educator and have taught in sanctuaries that seat 500 people in chapels of maximum-security prisons, in college classrooms, and in living rooms. I am a podcaster and have developed a series on grief and what it means to live and to die well. I am an end-of-life doula and a consultant who works with people to discover how to more effectively communicate in their faith communities.

If you are curious about my own educational journey, I have a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, a B.A. in philosophy from Wheaton College, and a Certification in Nonprofit Executive Leadership through the Mendoza School of Business at Notre Dame.