Discussions continue: Do American citizens share any "grand narrative," any common framework of stories that helps bind them? Did they ever, or should we be content to be "storyless" people, constituted by separate and conflicting stories, each appropriate only to a particular group (e.g., gays, Hispanics, the abused, Native Americans, and more)?

When tragedies occur and publics need rites of passage, it appears that some common fund of rituals, modes of mourning, languages of prayer, and yes, stories are at hand. It may be that a new more-or-less-grand narrative is emerging.

A case in point: the observances after the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, and sister-in-law. Having been away from television on an island, I missed the massive coverage--which may be an advantage if we want to stick to a point. That is, we do not have to debate whether Kennedys deserve the fuss, whether media did well by the event, where responsibility comes in, and the like. Our question has to do with public rituals or ritual in public.

From all I have read in the eulogies and reflections and about the rites of mourning, it is clear that we saw a blend between classic, in this case Catholic, and improvised rituals (for example, the donation and piling up of flowers at new shrine-sites). The various services were held in, for example, "a simple stone church," "St. Patrick's Old Cathedral," or "the Church of St. Thomas More," with priests and chaplains at hand. These are not the monuments of individual "seeker-spirituality" but legacies of faith communities cherished and supported through the decades by families like the Kennedys and Bessettes. Director Mike Nichols read from Revelation and Anne Freeman, mother of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Lauren Bessette, from --surprise--a book of sermons. Kennedy cousin Anthony Radziwill recited the Twenty-third Psalm.

These were what we might call "high church" counterparts to the "low church"--more informal, evangelical, "community" churches--that predominated when Littleton, Colorado, mourned and drew the nation into its grief. There is evidence that "high" and "low" adherents have more tolerance for each other than in the past and can use each other's rituals, or at least understand and empathize with them.

The question comes to mind each time, however: Will new generations take pains to frequent and support the chapels and cathedrals, churches and community centers to which the more casually religious gravitate at such times in a New York or a Littleton? If there are to be places to house mourners or celebrators whose rites evoke more than one day's bouquet of flowers on the ground can, someone has to be faithful in tending them. Whether the positive elements of a grand narrative emerge or survive will depend in no small part on those whom sociologist Robert Wuthnow says favor "dwelling-spirituality" in public and are not merely "seekers" in private. We'll see.