Regular readers of the Journal will note upon inspection that this issue contains 350 pages. Those new to our publication may wonder at its girth, if not its gravitas. Both reactions deserve a response. We have increased the size of the Journal for this and immediately forthcoming issues to accommodate the considerable backlog of articles accumulating in our online file and deserving of formal publication. Our commitment to our authors requires nothing less. We continue to review only those articles whose quality meets our standards.

It is a source of wonderment to me that this steep increase has taken place at a time when many publications, particularly niche ones, are forced to re-group, reconsider, and pull back on size of publication. I have noted before in this column that we at the Journal are beset with an embarrassment of riches in terms of both quality and now quantity of articles that appear from a wide range of locales and professional settings. In 2010, there were 212 submissions, and in 2011, there were 237. There were 171 online articles to choose from to construct this issue. Something must be going on here. One could be cynical and say “publish or perish” is a way of life and, well, here is one place for a researcher or essayist to preserve or advance a career in the academic and clinical worlds. The hardened realist in me agrees in part with this supposition, but only in part. I am consistently heartened, if not amazed, at the earnestness and sincerity of authors in their responses to peer review comments and critique of their work and their questions of me regarding our editorial procedure and policy. From having been on their side, I appreciate their joy when their work is accepted at last. There are, of course, inevitable cases of wounded pride but rarely rancor when the review process does not go well and results in rejection.

After a year and a half in this editorial position, I am beginning to see a larger and more engrossing picture of the Journal’s mission than what I originally imagined. I now see our role promoting a world wide dialogue among cultures and disciplines in the areas of spirituality, health, medicine, and psychology as more vital and necessary than ever. If the Journal can add something to this enlarging conversation that in any way promotes civil and informed discourse and debate, we will have done our job.

There is more to this, however. The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson speaks of the period of maturity, loosely seen as that of middle age, in the human life cycle as one where there is a crisis of “generativity” versus “stagnation.” Generativity is defined by our deriving more satisfaction from our sharing than acquiring and our gaining meaning from preparing the way for those who are to come after us in professions, families, and society. Recently I had a quite spontaneous conversation with a physician whom I have know for a decade who articulated how important it was for him to be an editor of his specialty’s journal. He said, “We can prepare the way for those who follow us.” There was nothing dramatic about his declaration. He was characteristically modest and understated. His remarks arose out of a firm conviction tested and refined by years of experience in clinical practice, teaching, and research. His words made me sit up and take notice as they occurred at that very moment of my efforts to select the content for this issue of the Journal. Similarly, of late I made a presentation at a forum at Weill Cornell Medical College on the relationship of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his physician who was, in effect, his psychotherapist and spiritual guide through the phases of his treatment for polio in the 1920s. Roosevelt thus became the first President who had anything like formal psychiatric care. During the time, I wrote the text for the address I read and listened again to the great speeches he gave to a nation engulfed in economic depression and moving toward involvement in the greatest war of all time. I remarked toward the very end of my presentation that “He [Roosevelt] made his suffering count for something.” A man paralyzed from the waist down through the help of others and specifically his doctor, his healer, used words and his own experience to become a primal generative force for his country. His example remains instructive.

I have come to believe that becoming and remaining generative, however, one sees and defines that for oneself, is an activity of the spirit. It unifies, integrates, and gives shape and purpose to human conduct and relationships. My sense, ever growing, is that all those who contribute to the Journal—authors, editorial board members, reviewers, and those involved in the largely unacknowledged work of production—have reason to claim their being generative as participants in this enterprise. While it may be a job, it is also something more than that. It is a job, and we all need them. But it is also a calling to shape a potentially better future because words, ideas, and experience matter. All who have participated in the creation of this issue of the Journal have a role in its generativity.