We'd hired an experienced logger to take down a seventy-five-foot-tall mountain hemlock tree that had grown dangerously close to our house. We loved and enjoyed that tree. But it had grown to within a few inches of the roof peak, and we discovered the trunk pushing into the foundation of the house. Reluctantly we decided the tree had to come down.

We watched the logger ascend the tree, trimming off branches as he climbed. There was a rhythm to his work. Finally he reached the point where he could cut off the top ten feet. He attached ropes, sawed off the top, and two men on the ground pulled the loose piece down. We looked up and saw the logger swaying widely back and forth on what was left of the tree—sixty-five feet up. He shouted, "I don't know how it looks from down there, but it's exciting up here!"

I loved that joyous comment. And it roused me to get started on a writing project I had to do. Up to this point all the ideas that had come to mind had seemed repetitious, outmoded, and boring. Nothing had jelled. So I had simply put off writing it. Now I realized quickly that if we're "stuck in a rut," not able to complete or even to begin a worthwhile project, it is essential to tackle it from a higher viewpoint—a spiritual one. How do we reach that point? We can seek deeper insights through prayer, which spiritualizes consciousness. Persistent and thorough study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, is also vitally helpful. Our thought is bound to be lifted higher as we listen more carefully to what God is telling us.

Man is not actually a mortal who has to generate good ideas and hope for inspiration. That's a limiting and false concept. Revealed in the Bible to be God's beloved child, created in His image and likeness, man is spiritual. God, Spirit, is unlimited divine Mind, the only source of intelligence. As the offspring, or spiritual expression, of the all-knowing Mind, we reflect infinite wisdom. And because this is true, we can progressively demonstrate our God-given intelligence in practical ways.

Mrs. Eddy asks and answers a pertinent question in Science and Health: "Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation" (p. 3). What is God's rule? One of harmony and perfection, of the omnipotence and omnipresence of good. By accepting our true identity to be spiritual, inseparable from God, we find the vitality, variety, energy, and radiance of God's infinite goodness present and available to enable us to do whatever we need to do, in the right way and at the right time. How could God's work be dull, uninspired? Each of us can realize that divine Love's beauty and clarity are expressed in man in wonderful ways.

The Master, Christ Jesus, sought quiet on a mountaintop and in the wilderness to pray and commune with God. The Bible tells us how he then often would come down and heal people immediately. (See Luke 9:28, 37–42 as an example.) Jesus' mountaintop experiences were opportunities to reaffirm what he understood of his and everyone's spiritual identity. As a result, whatever jarring mortal testimony confronted him after these times of quiet prayer—sin, sickness, death, attempts to frustrate his healing work and his teaching—he was never tempted to yield one iota of power or reality to evil, error. He knew God, good, to be All-in-all.

So many times we concentrate on our difficulties, or else we procrastinate, hoping someone else will do our work for us or it will "just go away." Disciplining ourselves to turn unreservedly to God as Jesus did, however, we find increasing evidence of the goodness and completeness of spiritual reality. Doing our work for the glory of God, and seeing that He is the only doer, we're relieved of a false sense of responsibility. And since God is the only Mind, and that Mind is our Mind by reflection, we cannot mistake His clear, decisive guidance. By accepting the spiritual fact of our indestructible unity with God, we'll no longer feel alone and inadequate.

Sometimes our progress on a project or in seeking healing of any kind may lapse into unsatisfactory momentum, rather like a sputtering engine. After a really good start, my writing bogged down again. I remembered the rhythm of the logger's work, and the words "the rhythm of Spirit" popped into my thought. Mrs. Eddy refers to this rhythm in Science and Health: "How much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual" (p. 510). To me, "the rhythm of Spirit" represents the constancy of God's thought and action. There's nothing static in the unfoldment of His action, nothing irregular, nothing to obstruct, interrupt, or destroy the fruits of God's will and design for each of us. Mrs. Eddy points out what is required of us: "... thought must be purely spiritual."

While the glimpse of spiritual reality on the hilltop of spiritual communion with God spurs us on, the everyday constancy of living what we are learning is very important, as Jesus demonstrated. Unless we are an example of living and proving divine Love, all the words we may write or actions we may take are empty, devoid of healing power.

With that in mind I continued to work on the project and was so grateful to complete it on time—and to realize that my love for God and my fellowman had deepened during this period. (It was also wonderful to find that the project was warmly received.)

Swaying on a tree sixty-five feet in the air may not be everyone's idea of joyous excitement! But what could bring greater joy and satisfaction than a healing that proves the practicality of Christ Jesus' teachings today? Each breakthrough in our understanding of God, of man, of true substance and intelligence, gives us a victory over the claim that evil can dominate and govern our lives. This is a mountaintop event that causes us to say, "It's exciting up here!"