I created a simple parser function that inserts a one line div into the page. It worked as expected except in the case where it was the first bit of wikitext in the article. In that case, the parser inserted <p><br/></p> into the page just before the div creating an ugly gap that wasted space. I then discovered that if I wrote <nowiki></nowiki> just before my parser function that this paragraph block was ommitted and I got the expected behavior. So I ended up wrapping my parser function in a template of the same name that also inserts the nowiki code, and voila, problem "solved." !
/brian