To take up your cross is to forsake social respectability. To take up your cross is to place yourself outside society and beyond its power. We’re to live as if we’re dead. For we are. We’ve died to our former way of life, to our former selves, to our sinful desires. We’ve died to the world and its social pressures. Many of us struggle because we’re trying to live like spiritual zombies. We’re the undead, trying to live the old life that was crucified with Christ. We ask, “Can I do this? Is this permissible?”,