The lam of God is passionately indiscriminate but the lamb is a sacrifice of sacrifice, of blood or against it. Consider this schizophrenic poet's pun:
I believe we will soon achieve world peace. But I'm still on the lamb. (1)
A lam is an active adventure through space in search of too many pleasures. A lamb might wander mindlessly with the flock, lost without an organizing principle. Or a lamb could be the peace of christ, the shepherd who is also a sheep, mastered and safely wandering a verdant place. Reflecting externally an internal mastery, the Lamb is an axis muni who centers and calms, restoring order to a self, a vertical to a horizontal. The Lamb is both self-sacrificing (laying down the lam) and royally heroic (laying down the law). In this poem, the lamb is opposed to world peace. The lam of the id could symbolize freedom opposed to a restrictive superego. The lam of the ego could be a justified protest to superego-id superimposition expressed religiously as pax romana (fake peace through violence) or blood sacrifice (authorized child abuse) by a parent who would slay their own child (Jacob or Jesus).
What seems clear to me in the conflation of lam and lamb is an opening of imagery around sacrifice and self-integration. In tertiary process or successful analysis, contradictions must be experienced and tolerated. The symbol of sacrifice is about contradiction: good comes of bad and peace from violence, whether it is violence fulfilled or order disturbed.
The sacrifice of id to ego replaces a lam for the lamb. But the sacrifice of ego to id is necessary for the truth of the unconscious to emerge. If a patient handed me this poem, I would ask about the movement and stillness of the lamb. Then observe indicators of goodness, badness, lawfulness and rebellion in relation to movement and stillness in order to understand the poet's motility (aggressive) drive. If I were to act as their confessor, I would call first upon the sweetness of god's indiscriminate love then to the inviolable in survival.
A psychoanalysis of religion is necessary for the treatment of schizophrenic patients.
(1) Torrey, E.F. (2013). The inner world of madness: View from the inside and defining schizophrenia: View from the outside. Surviving schizophrenia, (6th ed., pp. 1-74) New York, NY: Harper, 45.