When I speak of practicing the virtues, I do not mean learning a skill, but rather recognizing that we have to work at awakening and being present to our full humanity, awake to our existence as beings of body, soul, and spirit. . . . It remains an ongoing work to retrieve the notion of virtue from any kind of outmoded "churchiness," piety, or dogma, and restore it to a vitality and vigor that can have application in the present world. In the past, people made a concerted effort to live a virtuous life. To speak in this way now sounds antiquated; and it is.
— Robert Sardello, The Power of Soul