Garner Masonic Lodge # 701
Brother Earl Purser - In The News
Here is the artucle.
The News & Observer
March 8, 2002
Squatters' rites
Author:
Debbie Selinsky;
Correspondent
Garner -- Prayers have been said and 81-year-old Earle Purser, in his dark suit and books-of-the-Bible tie, has delivered a sermon that focuses on the equality of all people in God's eyes. Sunday morning worship is over and, as at every other Triangle house of worship, attendees cluster together to chat.
But there are no stained-glass windows here, no steeple or pews.
On this crisp winter morning, Purser and his five congregants have gathered outside for worship. Borrowed folding chairs carried in the back of a pickup truck provide seating, and a bright Kmart sign shows through the trees. A bearded man named Hank Meara tussles with his puppy Beauregard in the grass.
Purser, a longtime lawyer, is minister and landlord to this ragtag congregation. He is a commissioned lay pastor of the Presbyterian church, and once a month comes out to preach the word to the group of homeless people who live on his property.
"Why, I've known this guy for how long? Yep, about eight years," he said, clapping Meara on the back.
Meara, selected "mayor" of the community, said the group appreciates Purser's generosity. Purser has let homeless people live rent-free on the 150 acres for the past decade.
"How many people do you know who would let a bunch of people stay on his land without paying? And he's a lawyer, so he knows what the risk and liabilities are, and he does it anyway," Meara said.
A couple of years ago, Purser began to bring his Bible and sit at a picnic table where the group often congregates. They seemed interested in what he was reading and pretty soon, on the last Sunday of the month, they would appear at the top of the forest for more formal worship.
He said he leads this unusual church because he feels "so blessed." "God gave us the gift of life so I look at every day as an opportunity to live a better life," he said.
Purser became a lay minister a decade ago. The designation, which is given after a period of intensive study, qualifies him to serve as an interim pastor in the Presbyterian Church, according to Barbara Campbell Davis, executive presbyter and stated clerk of the Presbytery of New Hope in Rocky Mount. He also teaches Sunday school at his longtime church home, Ernest Myatt Presbyterian, often going directly there from the services in the woods.
Purser, dressed in his topcoat and hat, leads the group in greetings and announcements, then the call to worship, hymn, prayer of confession, Scripture reading, sermon (one that speaks directly to the congregation, Purser said), prayer of thanksgiving and intercession and prayer of benediction.
The whole thing only takes about 30 minutes, but it means something greater to Purser and to those who attend.
"Why do I come out here on a cold Sunday morning?" Meara said. "Because it's Sunday and on Sunday, you go to church. I grew up Catholic, going to church every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, so this is nothing new to me."
The others agree that they get something important from the services and that they come out of respect for Purser, who has spent much of his life helping others.
In his sermon, Purser emphasized the need to emulate Christ's example.
"We are all creatures of God, from the pope to the new believer who occupies a pew on Sunday morning, from the president to the janitor, we are all to be servants to each other. We are created by the same Almighty Parent, so why should we not care for, support and tend to each other and be servants to each other?"
Meara and the others say they'd like to have church more often -- and not just for spiritual sustenance but to offer prayers of thanksgiving.
Purser said he admires the way the people who live on his land have improvised fairly comfortable campsites; each person has his or her own about 30 to 40 yards apart. They've cleverly rigged up a functional shower and can even watch television using a car battery that they take to a store now and then for recharging.
"People don't realize how organized we are," Meara said. "We've been at it a long time and have come up with what is not a bad lifestyle."
Like every good landlord, Purser visits his tenants now and then, tramping into the woods for about a mile to their homes, sometimes accompanied by his grandson.
"I like 'em," he said. "And not just because they live on my property. They're regular people. If I can help out, I will. But what I provide is not material so much as it's helping them to feel like somebody."
In an economy so tough that it's no longer hard to imagine how easily one can wind up without a roof over one's head, Meara, William "Butch" Power, Howard J. Tudor and Otto Mintz say that, thanks to Purser, they feel secure in their homes.
Their community functions on teamwork, sharing what they have with one another. Meara and Mintz share their food stamps, while a woman who lives there contributes by working a full-time counter job at a restaurant. She brings home food when she can -- they have to guard it from raccoons and foxes -- and Tudor, an articulate, curly-haired man with a quick smile, said they often get vegetables that are good enough to eat from a nearby grocery store garbage bin. The others catch temporary work as they can, sometimes doing cleanup on nearby construction jobs.
Like any family, "we have our squabbles," Meara said. "But we get over it."
And when the chips are down, they are there for one another. Purser recalled an occasion when one man searched anxiously for a neighbor with a drinking problem and a penchant for wandering.
"And if somebody takes a box of food down there, everybody gets some -- they always share," he said.
Purser, a devoted Garner High School football fan and a longtime counselor of alcoholic lawyers, said he is gratified to see the spirit in which his parishioners-tenants-friends pull together.
Democracy reigns, with all residents having a vote in whether to accept a new neighbor or visitor ("Everybody knows about us from here to Nashville," Meara said) and, on occasion, whether to kick someone out for bad behavior, somewhat like the "Survivors" television show.
"'Survivors' -- that's a joke," Tudor scoffs. "We're the real survivors."
Copyright 2002 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.