Take it from the top!

Madora Fay McKenzie

One Christmas I was trying to choose the right tree for my home out of a vast lot of possible pines. One tree, about five feet tall, was lying with some others. I decided to stand it upright and, grasping the base of the tree, I heaved and huffed and pulled, all to no avail. The tree seemed to weigh a ton per foot. Then the thought came to take it from the top. I reached over and grasped the wispy top of its branches. The tree sprang up lightly in my hands, as if it were suddenly filled with helium.

What had changed? The tree hadn't shifted by itself; I hadn't miraculously acquired weight-lifting muscles. All that had changed was my approach, and that solved the problem.

This little incident so impressed me that I continued to think about it, especially the phrase "take it from the top." This is also a musicians' term, which an orchestra leader uses during rehearsal to tell the players to start at the beginning. It reminded me of lines in Science and Health: "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,—that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle."^{Science and Health, p.275.} In the same book Mrs. Eddy also says, "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence."^{Ibid., p. 492.}