"because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him"

"We must take care that the praise we offer him proceeds in good order, with no kind of excess creeping in which could offend the one whom we praise. We therefore think it best to follow the path of praise marked out in God’s scriptures, not declining from the way either to the right hand or to the left. I would go so far as to say to you, beloved, that God has praised himself in order to give human beings a pattern by which they can praise him in a seemly fashion. Because God has kindly praised himself, men and women know how to praise him [(ut bene ab homine laudetur deus, laudauit se ipse deus; et quia dignatus est laudare se, ideo inuenit homo quemadmodum laudet eum)]."

     St. Augustine, Exposition of Ps 144 (145).1, trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/20, 379.  Latin from CCSL 40, 2088 ll. 1-8 via CAG via Past Masters.  St. Augustine continues as follows:  "It cannot, of course, be said to God, as it is to humans, Let not your own mouth praise you (Prv 27:2). If a human being praises himself, it is arrogance, but if God praises himself, he does so out of his mercy. It is to our advantage to love him whom we praise because, by loving the good, we become better. Knowing that it is good for us to love him, God has made himself lovable by praising himself, and in making himself lovable he has our good at heart. He therefore stirs up our hearts to praise him, and he has filled his servants with his own Spirit, to enable them to offer him praise. And if it is his own Spirit, present in his servants, who is praising him, what else can we conclude but that God is praising himself?"  Trans. H. Walford, Expositions on the book of Psalms, Library of the Fathers, vol. 6 (1857), p. 314:

in order that the praise which we give Him may be in due order, that it may not by any excess offend Him Whom it praiseth, it is better for us to seek the path of praise in the Scripture of God, that we turn not aside from the way, either to the right hand or to the left.  For I venture to say to you, beloved, God hath praised Himself, that He might be properly praised by man:  and because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him.

"she was squeamish, and she was [still] alive"

     'I have heard that white men eat turtles,' said Long Bear’s wife.  'I do not believe it.'
     'They do eat turtles,' said High Backbone, 'and they eat frogs.  A white man told me.  I asked him.'
     'Ey!  And such unclean things; I could not eat them,' cried Bird Woman [(Sacagawea)].

     . . .

     "How do we know this happened?  Buffalo Bird Woman was there, she told [Gilbert] Wilson, and Wilson told us.  It’s even possible that Wilson confirmed it with Wounded Face.  This simple story, published by a man careful with facts, might tell us two things about Bird Woman in the 1860s:  she was squeamish, and she was alive."

     Thomas Powers, "Getting Sacagawea right," reviewing Our story of Eagle Woman:  Sacagawea:  they got it wrong, by the Sacagawea Project Board of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (Paragon Agency, ), The New York review of books 70, no. 10 (June 8, 2023):  41, 42 (39-42), on Sacagawea "in the mid-1860s", not long before (supposedly) her actual death in 1869, not 20 December 1812 as long thought.  Nineteen or twenty in August of 1806 (39), she would thus have been born c. 1786 or 1787.

Salt and light

"First salt, then light, so that you may learn how profitable sharp words [(τῶν κατεστυμμένων ῥημάτων)] may be and how useful serious doctrine [(τῆς σεμνῆς διδασκαλίας)]."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 201 at 195A =PG 57, col. 232.  NPNF:

"And before they are salt, and now light; to teach thee how great [(ἡλίκον)] is the gain of these strict precepts, and the profit of that grave discipline: . . ."

No easy struggles or unimportant tasks

"Do not think, he says, that you are destined for easy struggles or unimportant tasks.  You are the salt of the earth."

Μὴ τοίνυν νομίσητε, φησὶν, ἐπὶ τοὺς τυχόντας ἀγῶνας ἕλκεσθαι, μηδὲ ὑπὲρ μικρῶν τινων εἶναι τὸν λόγον ὑμῖν·  "ὑμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἄλας τῆς γῆς."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 199 at 193E =PG 57, col. 231.  NPNF:

"'Think not then,' He saith, 'that ye are drawn on to ordinary conflicts, or that for some small matters you are to give account.' 'Ye are the salt of the earth.'"

May he reward with blessed gifts all who sing in these quiet hours the Psalms of David

Köln, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und
Dombibliothek, 215 (12th cent.), fol. 212v

May he reward with blessed gifts all who—at the most hallowed of times on this, the first of all days, at which the world stood forth created, and the resurgent Creator, having conquered death, set us free—sing, in these quiet hours, the Psalms [of David].

     An amalgam of stanzas one and four of the anonymous 6th- or 7th-century hymn Primo dierum omnium, sometimes attributed to St. Gregory the Great, and assigned traditionally to Sunday Matins during the winter season.  I have taken but two further slight liberties:  "times" ("sacratissimo . . . tempore") is singular, and "having conquered death" ("morte victa") should read, literally, "death having been conquered".  Though I have not taken this from a properly critical edition, the whole runs as follows:

Primo dierum omnium,
quo mundus exstat conditus
vel quo resurgens conditor
nos, morte victa, liberat,

Pulsis procul torporibus,
surgamus omnes ocius,
et nocte quaeramus pium,
sicut Prophetam novimus,

Nostras preces ut audiat
suamque dextram porrigat,
et hic piatos sordibus
reddat polorum sedibus,

Ut, quique sacratissimo
huius diei tempore
horis quietis psallimus,
donis beatis muneret.

Deo Patri sit gloria
eiusque soli Filio
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula.  Amen.

As translated at Universalis:

On this the first of all days,
When the world came forth created
And when, with death conquered,
The risen Creator frees us,

Having cast aside all sloth
Let us all arise with alacrity
And by night seek the merciful One
Whom we recognize as a prophet,

That he may attend to our prayers
And stretch out [to us] his right hand,
And, once cleansed of our sins,
Grant [us] a place in heaven,

That he may reward with blessed gifts
All who at the most hallowed
Time of this day,
Sing his praises in these quiet hours.

Glory be to God the Father
And to his only Son
With the Spirit Paraclete
For ever and ever.  Amen.

As translated by Walsh and Husch (One hundred Latin hymns:  Ambrose to Aquinas, Dumbarton Oaks medieval library (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2012), no. 38, pp. 147, 438-439, where Walpole, Early Latin hymns (1922), 262-263; Wieland, The Canterbury hymnal (1982), 24-25; and Milfull, The hymns of the Anglo-Saxon church (1982), 115-119 are also cited):

On this, the first day of all days
on which the world, being made, emerged,
on which the maker rose again
and freed us, having conquered death,

Let us, sloth driven far away,
rise all together urgently,
in darkness beg the holy one,
as we know the prophet did,

That he might hearken to our prayers
and offer unto us his hand,
and render us, here cleansed of filth,
unto the heavenly demesnes;

And that whoever on this day,
which is the holiest of all,
do hymn him in these hours of rest
be endowed by him with blessed gifts.

Trundling along at my own leisurely pace

Source

     "A sister wanted to know just how this martyrdom [of love] worked out in practice.
     "'Give God your unconditional consent,' she said, 'and then you will find out. What happens is that love seeks out the most intimate and secret place of your soul, as with a sharp sword, and cuts you off even from your own self. I know of a soul cut off in this way so that she felt it more keenly than if a tyrant had cleaved her body from her soul.'
     "We knew, of course, that she was speaking about herself. A sister wanted to know how long this martyrdom was likely to last.
     "'From the moment we give ourselves up wholeheartedly to God until the moment we die,' she answered. 'But this goes for generous hearts and people who keep faith with love and don’t take back their offering; our Lord doesn’t take the trouble [(ne s'appliquer pas)] to make martyrs of feeble hearts and people who have little love and not much constancy; he just lets them jog along in their own little way [(il se contente de les laisser rouler leur petit train, he is content to allow them to trundle [along at] their [own] leisurely pace)] in case [(de crainte que, for fear that)] they [will] give up and slip from his hands altogether; he never forces our free will.'"

     Françoise-Madeleine de Chaugy of St. Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal, Memoires de la Mère de Chaugy:  sur la vie et les vertus de Sainte Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal III.3, as translated in the Liturgy of the hours as reproduced by Universalis.  French:  2nd ed. (Le Mans:  Fleuriot; Paris:  Sagnier et Bray, 1845), 347.  "for fear that" ("de crainte que") is far less ambiguous than "in case".  The translation in Universalis allows for the possibility that God hopes we'll "give up and slip from his hands altogether".

A boundary-overflowing profusion of body types (and therefore sexes) capable of transcending the limits of biblical "kind"

Turning from a brief history of the question, and then from an analysis of the key New Testament passages, and especially 1 Cor 15:35-49 as represented diagrammatically (opposite), according to which bodily variety in time might "cross" with a presumably ever-increasing bodily variety across the aeons of creation, [reconciliation], but in the post-resurrection period of [redemption] most especially, Heß then makes some tentatively constructive moves, moves that strike me as—and that she more than once admits are—more speculative than strictly exegetical:

. . . The "explication begins already with v. 38 [of 1 Cor 15]: God’s newly creative work gives to every creature, 'between the times,' a body of its own, [i.e. a body] appropriate to it (ἴδιον σῶμα). On earth men, animals, birds, and fish live and move in a profusion of [(in einer Fülle an)] σάρξ, [while] in the heavens sun, moon, and stars shine in the most manifold δόξα. Also, this impressive panorama of metaphors—topologically an exuberant praise of the creation, in fact—can exhibit chronological lucidity [(kann chronologisch Transparenz entfalten)]. Again: the earthly sphere (v 39) for the reality of creation, the heavenly [sphere] for the reality of redemption (v 41): in all aeons of salvation God [(Gott)] maintains her creature [(ihre Kreatur)] in [a] variegated individuality. Presumably the future plurality of bodies will go well [(noch)] beyond [that of] the present, insofar as, with the individual creature [(Geschöpf)], this [plurality], too [(auch sie)], will stand for the first time no longer under the sign of fleshly brokenness, but will appear in perfect clarity. Perhaps such an eschatic clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the bodily manifold of creation will . . . [(ja nicht)] ultimately attain to form in this, that its 'earthly' orientation to [the 'one] kinds' of v 39 [will] sprout, in the heavenly aeon, [out] into a boundary-overflowing profusion of bodies capable of transcending even, beyond that [(noch)], the limits of kind: 'for one star differs from [another] star in δόξα' (v 41).
     "So also [with] the resurrection of—sexed bodies? I would risk the attempt to place the theological accents of 1 Cor 15:35-49, too, within the horizon of our opening question. Vv. 39-41 in particular promise for the eschaton, at any rate, no one (as it were) unified body of a certain fixed kind [(keinen wie auch immer gearteten Einheitsleib)]. Quite the contrary. In this difference [(Gefälle)], the confession that in Christ [there] is (one day) no longer either male or female might then hold out in prospect the absence of a uniform sexuality for th[ose] risen [(keine uniforme Geschlechtlichkeit der Auferweckten)]—be that [as in the tradition (295-301)] either exclusively male or sexually androgynous [(geschlechtsneutral)]. On the basis of vv. 38 and 41 an eschatic plurality of sexed bodies and identities could lie close at hand, in which God allows th[ose] risen to appear on the far side of [the] pre-established limits of the (dualizing) matrix of [the two] sexes [(jenseits vorgegebener Grenzen der (dualisierenden) Geschlechtermatrix)] in accordance with his (previously composed) will in the individuality suited to them: 'But God gives it [(ihm, him)] a body as it [(sie)] has chosen, and (indeed) to every individual seed [(jedem Einzelnen der Samenkörner)] a corresponding body [(einen entsprechenden Leib)]' (v. 38).
     "All in all, therefore, our eschatological search for clues [(Spurensuche)] on the far side of monism [on the one hand] and dualism [on the other] ends in a pluralism of sexual difference characterized by new creation [(neuschöpferisch qualifizierten Pluralismus der Geschlechterdifferenz)].
     "I summarize:
     "The theologically uncontested conception of an eschatic transformation of sexual corporeality can from the New Testament onwards and with significant theological justification [(vom Neuen Testament her durchaus theologisch begründet)] be represented 1) as a fundamentally corporeal re[con]figuration [(Neufigurierung)] of the form of sex [introduced at] creation [(der Schöpfungsgestalt von Geschlecht)] that [is] effected in the Christ-sphere [and] has also de-dualizing and anti-hierarchical consequences for sexual identity and sexual praxis (Gal 3:28; Mk 12:25 and parallels). Such an eschatological transformation of the reality of sex can occur 2) modally as [a] radical shift in perspective that brings with it a curative clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the risen with respect to their sexual existence. In that they obtain [a] share in the perception with which GOD sees them is their at-present-always only-fragmentarily-experienceable corporeality and identity for the first time adequately developed [(zur Entfaltung gebracht)] (1 Cor 13:9-12; 1 Jn 3:2). This transformation of perception might take shape qualitatively in 3) a newly created [(neuschöpferischen)] plurality of risen bodies that would make it possible for every single sexed body to make itself felt individually in the singularity perfectly [(je)] appropriate to it (1 Cor 15:35-49).”
     "III.
     "What we will be has in fact not yet appeared. The biblico-deconstructive inducements [(Anstöße)] to a de-dualized eschatology of sexual difference are understood, first, as [a] decidedly future-eschatological contribution. And so they are constructed, obviously, on the foundation of [some] very complex [(vielschichtigster)] theological problems that cannot [(nicht konnten)] be considered here explicitly.
     "But how goes it with their real-world [(lebensweltliche)] workability in particular? Does the idea of the eschatologically 'last things' issue, perhaps [even] necessarily, in an unpolitical quietism that [it] would be right to challenge from the standpoint of feminist theology? I think not. Pauline theology knows already of a specific mutual entanglement of [the] already now and [the] not yet, of present and future eschatology, of reconciliation and redemption. Thus, the baptismal formula of Gal. 3:28 puts its anticipated eschatological conclusions [(Urteile)] in the indicative. As incorporation into Christ’s sphere of influence, baptism brings with it already revolutionary [and] newly creative [(neuschöpferische)] transformations, [such that] in Christ the 'new creature' has already appeared (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17 ). And yet its qualitative transformation into ultimate perfection is still to come (1 Cor 15:35 ff. ). It is important not to fall short of this productive tension theologically. Within its horizon the future impetus of eschatology appears not as [a] reactionary scenario of consolation, but as [a] potential for a 'utopian anthropology' that does not leave to [present] reality in its self-sufficiency the last word. 'If . . . inherited [(tradierte)] certainties are placed in question, then ever-new fields of activity and life-plans [(Lebensentwürfe)] become possible as well.' As [a] universal perspective of hope, this doesn’t just open up[—to hope—]alternative and therein perhaps more authentic ways of existence to the individual; it opens up—to hope—new fields of increasingly plural [(pluralerer)] sociality in the here and now.
     "Naturally, one could [(kann)], speaking epistemologically, banish the considerations outlined here to the curiosity-cabinet of dogmatics with ease. Yet wholly apart from the pressures that Holy Scripture all by itself [(nun einmal selbst)] exerts [(gibt)], one certainly does not in this way, however, get rid of the questions that have [been] thrown open [(aufgeworfenen)]. If sexuality does in fact stamp human experience unavoidably, but the eschaton involves [(meint)] a personal event, then it may be impossible to avoid thematizing also the question of sexual identity eschatologically. And if the culturally-generated production of the sexual binary [(Zweigeschlechtlichkeit)] is accompanied by repressive trimmings of human bodies and identities, [then] one will also have to reflect upon the question of sexual transformation in the eschaton at the very latest. The theological tradition has not shrunk from this concern. Incidentally, we have yet to grasp that the problem of the sexuality of the resurrected body may be in and of itself in no way more unclear and speculative than many other theological topoi, indeed, ultimately, [even] the Christian faith itself in specific ways.
    "'It does not yet appear what we shall be.'
     "For this reason my comments can and want to be but provocations [(Anstöße)]. As such, the have obviously a theological potential that is wholly personal in nature: 'No proof is furnished; the point is simply to create room for thought.'
     "I would not like to exclude [(möchte nicht ausschließen) the possibility] that we could appear in the revelatory fulfillment of the eschaton as authentic and mutually reconciled men and women. But perhaps our redeemed (sexual) bodies will appear for the first time in their unmediated peculiarity [(un-vermittelten Eigen-artig-keit)] so variously that the interpersonal desire for [(zwischenmenschliche Begehren nach)] reductionistic dualizations [(reduktionistischen Dualisierungen)] of every kind will have been, in view of this fullness in God’s name, done away with. What we will be will then—if God wills and we live (Js 4:15)—appear in [all of its] splendor."

     Ruth Heß, "'Es ist noch nicht erschienen, was wir sein werden.'  Biblische-(de)konstruktivische Anstöße zu einer entdualisierten Eschatologie der Geschlechterdifferenz," in Alles in allem:  eschatologische Anstöße:  J. Christine Janowski zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ruth Heß and Martin Leiner (Neukirchen-Vluyn:  Neukirchener Verlag, 2005), 320-323 (291-323), translation (and every misunderstanding) mine.  E.g. I must confess that I haven't yet figured out what to do with the ja nicht near the end of that first paragraph (on p. 320).