[Zope] Accessing zope through command-line python

I understand this: ---- import Zope root=Zope.app() #do stuff now. ---- However, if zope is running I receive an error: File "/home/local/zope_2_6/lib/python/ZODB/lock_file.py", line 33, in lock_file raise error, ( ZODB.POSException.StorageSystemError: Could not lock the database file. There must be another process that has opened the file. Is there a way to access a running zope instance in this way? Thanks, Mark