Happy St. Expedite Day!

I first became aware of St. Expedite in Andrew Santella’s thoughtful Soon: an overdue history of procrastination, from Leonardo and Darwin to you and me (ch. 3, “Saints, Crows, Poets, Priests).*

St. Expedite is a Catholic martyr. His story is that he was a Roman soldier who decided to convert to Christianity. Satan appeared to him in the form of a crow, urging him to put it off until the next day, but Expedite refused, crushing the crow beneath his boot and converting that day.

The faithful pray to him for quick solutions to things like legal and financial issues. He’s also the patron saint of procrastinators; although we’re supposed to pray to him to end our procrastination, that need not concern us here.

His iconography shows him trampling the crow, who bears a little banner with the word CRAS on it, and of course we Lichtenbergians recognize that from our motto: Cras melior est, i.e., Tomorrow is better. (His cross is labeled HODIE, i.e., Today.)

As a dedicated Lichtenbergian, I am of course committed to our Precept of TASK AVOIDANCE, also known as structured procrastination: I avoid working on Project A by working on Project B, and vice versa. Mostly, it works. I may never finish Project A, but in the meantime I will have Project B in the can. It’s a delicate balance.

So raise a glass/light a candle/offer up a prayer of thanks to St. Expedite and be grateful that you don’t need his intervention. **

-—-—-—-—-—

* Full disclosure: I am featured in chapter 6, “Seeds.”

** I could do a whole essay on “external locus of control” and how that’s never a good idea, but I won’t.